Ronnie Allen Audio Stories

bud green said:
Golfportdoc on onepocket.org put up a link to some cool Ronnie Allen audio stories about gambling. Some funny stuff; I haven't listened to all of them but the first two are great. He has some funny stories about gambling at golf,too.

www.tropicanabowlingalley.com/ronnie.html
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only started to listen to first part..this is great..thanks!
 
I'm going to give this one bump in case people missed it. I really think any fan of action stories will enjoy a legend talking about pool and other big action.
 
This is some great stuff here! I only listened to the first tape so far. I know Ronnie pretty well, but most of this stuff I never heard before.

Just get a load of what the great Ronnie Allen has to say about Harold Worst. Then you'll have a better understanding why I rate him so highly. Ronnie's stories about Harold are slight exaggerations, but basically accurate. He beat a select field of English Snooker players after he won the Three Cushion tourney in Belgium. But Harold knew how to play Snooker. He grew up with that game as well as Billiards in Grand Rapids. Ronnie didn't know that.

I had seen Harold play Cornbread in the finals of a big Snooker championship in Detroit in 1963. They both played great and I think Red just eased him out in the final game. These guys were running 60's and 70's on a tight table. They could both play jam up Snooker, and neither one of them could beat Sammy Blumenthal from Jacksonville back then. Snooker Sammy was the best American player, and he was second in North America to George Chenier from Canada.

Harold had won the 9-Ball and the Three Cushion titles at the same all around tourney in Detroit. So he had two firsts and a second. Red won the One Pocket division also, so he won two divisions too. Harold Worst could play any game on a pool or billiard table, and if given a little time, he could beat anyone. He was like an American version of Efren. With a little coaching he would have been able to challenge Ronnie in One Pocket. And if he had spent a few months practicing Snooker, he could have won in England too. He was that good! Just a once in a lifetime PHENOM. Kind of like the Jim Thorpe of billiard games.

IMHO! And I've seen 'em all over the last 40 years.
 
I can't believe Worst didn't even play pocket billiards until he was 32. To change games and become as good as anyone, even Lassiter at nine ball, that late in life is incredible. There was a cool bio of him on billiardsdigest.com awhile back which talked about him going to South America and winning the 3-C title.

Ronnie makes me even more of a believer that he might have been the best ever as far as pure natural ability at all games. Top 5 for sure. He's in the class of Mosconi, Lindrum,etc..

Absolute tragedy he died so young at 38. Especially when you hear about how he was a total class act.

If you happen to check this thread out again, Jay, is it true some guy ran into a pool hall and stabbed Ronnie Allen thinking he was someone else? An old timer who used to be a Cochrans' regular told me that story the other day. I think he said it happened in LA.
 
bud green said:
I can't believe Worst didn't even play pocket billiards until he was 32. To change games and become as good as anyone, even Lassiter at nine ball, that late in life is incredible. There was a cool bio of him on billiardsdigest.com awhile back which talked about him going to South America and winning the 3-C title.

Ronnie makes me even more of a believer that he might have been the best ever as far as pure natural ability at all games. Top 5 for sure. He's in the class of Mosconi, Lindrum,etc..

Absolute tragedy he died so young at 38. Especially when you hear about how he was a total class act.

If you happen to check this thread out again, Jay, is it true some guy ran into a pool hall and stabbed Ronnie Allen thinking he was someone else? An old timer who used to be a Cochrans' regular told me that story the other day. I think he said it happened in LA.
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This is part of the lore that surrounds Worst. Harold did play pool prior to that, just not as seriously as he played Three Cushions. He died at age 37 in 1966. I never heard about Ronnie getting stabbed. He certainly never told me about that, and we spent a lot of time together.
 
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I have been able two watch 3 through 7 and they were great but both parts of 1 and number 2 give me a blank white screen, anyone know how to fix this ? Thanks for the great post I laughed so hard at the Lamb slaughters the butcher it hurt.

Leonard
 
I like it when his friend tells him that the guy he owes is the biggest mafia guy in Mexico and Ronnie says, "thats nice, thats nice!":eek: I may have expressed my feeling a little differently in that situation!
 
Fast Lenny said:
I enjoyed watching the Richie Florence vid on there.
http://www.tropicanabowlingalley.com/richie.wmv
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That's one GREAT video! It's good to see Richie again when he was at his peak, even if he's playing 14.1 his worst game. Also on this video, you'll see Robert "Rags" Woods, Jimmy Moore (check out his sweet stroke) and Joe Balsis.

This must have been made in the early 70's, when Fred Whalen was producing his legendary pool tournaments in Los Angeles. Notice all the players were wearing suits. You had to back then in Fred's events.

I'd love to have a copy of this. It's CLASSIC!
 
can't give you rep yet, but thank you for sharing those great pieces of pool history!
 
THANK YOU so much! These were great. I hope that TAR resumes the podcasts sometime. We really need a lot of things like this to preserve an era of pool that will never be seen again.
 
Thanks for posting that, those are some great stories. I do have a question. If you scroll down the page below the picture of Ronnie Allen there is a cover of an old pool and billiard magazine. I recognize Balsas and Crane. Does anybody know who the others are?
 
alstl said:
Thanks for posting that, those are some great stories. I do have a question. If you scroll down the page below the picture of Ronnie Allen there is a cover of an old pool and billiard magazine. I recognize Balsas and Crane. Does anybody know who the others are?
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Left to right, Weenie Beenie (Bill Staton), Ronnie Allen, Eddie Taylor, Marshall 'Squirrel' Carpenter, Joe Balsis, Danny Jones, Irving Crane and Jack Breit. Did I get that right? Did I win anything?:D

ronnie.jpg
 
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