I was not going to post on this subject but since there is so much inuendo and speculation as to what happened I will attempt to relay the whole story then all of you may make your judgments based on the facts.
Yes Ronnie was drinking, we all know that is true but if there is anybody in this world than can handle that it is him. His drinking had nothing to do with this, it had to do with an overzealous tournament director that according to a lot of people was on a power binge which is really no offense to her as sometimes as a t.d. you need to be strong. A lot of people believe she overreacted but it also is like she was setup and forced to make a decision that when Chet Ito the owner of the room found out about was not too happy. The whole problem started when the tournament started over an hour late and after Ronnie played and won two matches hIe tried to get a reasonable time when he would play again so he could leave the premises without a forfeit and obtain some medication and probably a shot before his next match. He is diabetic and has liver problems. He takes about 5 different pills. Well he could not get permission to leave so he whinned but stayed until he next match but that got him off on the wrong foot with Carissa. When is next match started it just happened his opponent was the road partner of Danny Medina, someone from Denver who Ronnie knew. The whole problem started when for no reason basically Danny went to the front desk and started to try to complain to the desk person about Ronnie pulling moves. The desk man said , hey thats not what i am here for go complain to the tournament director,so he did and that was Carissa. He told her to watch Ronnie cause he was pulling moves. I dont know what he was talking about except he did not always sit between shots but remember he is diabetic and I never saw his opponent complain once. Diabetics legs and feet can numb up and the circulation is bad so standing sometimes is better.
The point is his opponent never complained. Then the cue ball incident came up and he asked for a new cue ball, like someone else said, big deal, but he was refused even though his sober opponent agreed it was not rolling properly,so this dispute went on for 10 or 15 minutes for no reason. Carissa refused to provide another ball for some reason. Steve Lingblach was playing on the neighboring table and never intervened and he is one of the main Pechauer reps and editor of the on the wire newspaper. Finally Chet gets wind of the problem and simply walks over with a new cue ball, gives it to Ronnie and that was that, the match continued.
A moment later Ronnie complained about no bridge at the table, so he was like over acting because he could not get a cue ball and then a bridge so it looked like he was upset but he was doing his usual thing. Then when he screwed up the shot he swept the balls, one fell of the table, and of course that forfeited the game so Carissa was upset with that but again I say not his opponent. Now Ronnie is losing 8-6 but he has ball in hand after the break but he asks his opponent if he can go to the rest room. He asked because he had already gone once. Rember now he is diabetic and a heavy drinker so his opponent said sure go ahead. Well when Ronnie came back
Carissa disqualified him. That is when he insulted her because he thought he was being disqualified for breaking the rules and when he asked her what he was suppose to do, she told him to just hold it. Wow. Then he asked her if he should just pull it out and go on the floor then get arrested. She told him to hold it. He told her to (and he makes a gesture) why dont you just hold this. Or something like that. So he probably at that point was upset but as I was watching the whole thing he never raised his voice or went beserk. He just walked away. He was not even informed he was out of the tournament. Although he was not going to play again other people had to inform him he had forfetied his next match also. It would have been a good one, Rafael Martinez but as fans we missed it because I really believe Carissa over reacted only because there was never a dispute between the players or a complaint from a player only inuendo from a champion who does not like Ronnie and thought he might be moving on his partner. If the opponent does not complain the t.d. should not be involved that much. A few minutes later George Michaels and Mark Hadad got into a major arguement about a shot and that was disturbing a lot more people then Ronnie. And that was on the neighboring table also. Nobody said a word to them.
Ronnie went about his business and never ever got out of line the rest of the night and like a previous poster said he got a match later and played without incident and went to the bathroom several times and played a great one handed game to the delight of the audience and came out 200 ahead.
Lets hear it for the old school.
By the way he scored 1300 the next night as Fast Eddys in a one pocket game.
