mjantti said:
I've seen Sigel's 150-out against Jim Rempe. I know that I'm a perfectionist and so seems Sigel, because I think he was out of position quite many times and that can be seen from his body language and facial expressions. But because of multiple available choices and a couple of excellent shots he got out. I haven't seen his 150-out agains Zuglan. I'd love to see it, though.
Irving Crane's 150-out against Balsis was different. Crane had mostly open racks and if he got into trouble, he always managed to find a combination from a cluster of balls. And also that horrible near-scratch when his run was something like 142 or something. Severe lapse of concentration which almost ended the run. Nice recovery though...
I've run a puny 82. Still aiming for the 100's someday...
Fast replies: In Two parts, this is part 1 of 2.
Before you guys run out and begin to buy every century run, realize most are good, some great, some are lousy, the worst being the Dallas West where he runs 100 against him self in his home room and chokes on 99 barely getting out. I like Dallas, a great player, a great champion and ball runner, but this tape stinks, sorry Dallas.
The Crane tape is my 2nd favorite one, another must tape to own. I love this tape, play it a lot, it is so cool. It's not a perfect out, but it does show you that you do not have to play perfect to get out and rarely does any one do that anyway. Getting out is innovating. Making that tough cut or bank when you do screw up shape, being a daring shotmaker.
I always admired Crane and his game, I think he won worlds in 4 or 5 decades, nobody else did that. He also was first to run over 300 on a 5x10 using 4 l/2" pockets, in 1939 potting 309. He could run, but he was known for running 40 on you, not liking his shot and bailing out leaving you a safe and no shot. He won a lot of championships not out running you but out smarting you. He was probably the 3rd or 4th greatest player of the golden age, Mosconi, Greenleaf, Caras and Crane is how I would rate them. I knew them all, played all four of them, lost to all 4 of them.
When I came up and began to play well and gamble on my game, that was all there was, gambling, nothing else. In the late 50's Greenleaf died, Hoppe died, Mosconi had a stroke and retired, all the main stars were gone just like that. People were going into bowling and golf, pool literally died. People had a new toy, TV, they wanted to stay home and watch Uncle Miltie. Most of the classic rooms of legend closed as did a ton of them across the country. Over night over 90% of all rooms were gone. You could find a thousand rooms in NYC, now you were lucky to find two.
The BCA collapsed and with this, closing their doors. They tossed all of their files and records in the dumpster and walking away to find day jobs. It was now gamble or starve or start selling used cars as Crane was doing, actually caddys. Joe Balsis was a butcher by day trade, Boston Shorty drove a cab. Simonis cloth stopped coming into the country and we began an era of playing on slower house type cloths which is about to save Crane in his match. .
With the BCA going away, the world championships also ceased to exist. That was why the Jansco Brothers started up the Hustlers Jamboree in 61 and it did not really get rolling well until the 63-64 events. I went to almost all of them from 63 up to the 70’s. Pool and gambling now married and the world championship was now the world championship of hustlers and gamblers. The era of tin cups was gone; show me da cash was the cry. Match up, get down and play all night long on speed, diet pills, bennies and booze. There was more action in the back room than in the tourney pit. The new heroes were no longer the Mosconis and Cranes, but the Minnesota Fats, Omaha Fat, Wimpy, Shorty, Daddy war bucks and Harold Worst. There was 100 fantastic players behind these guys, all run out killers at the tables. Crane showed up at Johnston city and did not do well, Caras stayed away and just toured doing trick shot shows. Mosconi did the same after he recovered from his head blowing up from speed, he just did exhibitions from then on.
In 6l the movie the hustler won academy awards and made heroes out of gamblers, such as Minnesota Fats and Fast Eddy Felson.
It set off a new wave of interest. Hustling pool suddenly became very cool, everyone then was hustling somebody, little fish getting eaten by bigger fish. In 62 rooms began to reopen, people began to dust off their cues and play once more. The big TV fad was over and people wanted to get out of the house once more and away from the old lady. I had more markers in my pocket then than cash.
The year is 1966, pool is now back, Johnston City is staging the greatest events of all time, the high water mark of mid 20th century pool. The BCA returns and sets back up and puts on their first championship in almost a decade, pool was in the dark ages for that long.
This was the first pool telecast on TV, the wide world of sports would also that same year go to Johnston City and cover the hustlers jamboree, Omaha Fat opens doing a one handed spot shot, Danny D, Champagne Eddy do trick shots to open the show. Weenie Beanie is showing off in a corner.
TV was new with most families just getting their first TV's in the early to mid 50's. You had 3 channels, it came in over the air in black and white, wiggle your rabbit ears all you wanted, and the reception was awful. Being able to now see a ball game or pool live on TV was a miracle of that age. We did not have cable or DVD’s; we did not know the reception sucked, just to see any image was of awe and wonder back then.
The event was the finals of the lst US Open, before then they just had world events, or tour stops. 26 players played the championship game, 14.1 continuous pocket billiards. It was in the grand ballroom of the Sherman House Hotel in Chicago, Ill. Whispering Joe Wilson was the color announcer. For those of you who think pretty boy Floyd is a jerk, Joe takes the cake. This guy does not have a clue what is going on. When I watch this tape now I turn off the audio to shut his mouth up. He was a bowling announcer, pool was not his sport. Back in that time, pool and bowling did go hand in hand tightly. Pool being the bastard stepchild.
If I was in the room then I would have bet on Joe Balsis, the meat man. He was the main stick at the time and doing very well at Johnston City. Irving Crane was 27 years out of his high run and prime, at the end of his career. Guy in prime, old guy at retirement, I bet on young guy every time. I figure the old guy to do well early and then fold faster than a $3.00 blue light special Kmart card table. Instead the old guy comes out hotter than a brand new Puerto Rican credit card, go figger. Never ever count any great champion out of any match no matter what his age is, that is the lesson to be learned here.
The meat man, Balsis wins the lag, the most important shot in the match. He gives the break to IC, smart move. IC breaks poorly, JB runs 12 and has a simple cut off the rail, and cue ball comes up and breaks up the cluster and misses the entire damn thing, which will be fatal to him, that changed everything. Hugh mistake, crane runs two and then scratches, an even bigger mistake. They go into a series of safes, intentional fouls that goes on for 13 minutes. Crane gives up his two points in fouls and is back to zero.
I love this part of the game where it becomes chess. One will out smart and out maneuver the other guy, pull a mistake from him or take a dangerous shot out of the rack, pull it off and run out. If he misses the gamble, he is doomed. Unfortunately this safety play was only understood by the hardcore and real players. The general ball banger majority of the pool world would get bored with this real fast. Miz a few years later would get into a couple of real stinko drag down lousy matches on TV that put everyone to sleep and featured 5 ball runs and endless safeties and the call went out to kill off straight and bring in 9 ball. Straight which rules as king since 1912 slowly faded out of favor as the championship game in the 70's and by the 80's 9 ball had taken over. That was the greatest single mistake ever made it pool, for it sent pool into a downward spiral from which it has never returned from.
English snooker is played just like straight pool, safe break, and play safeties until somebody has the guts to go into the red stack and run a century. We made the Hugh mistake of putting pool on live with no editing. We are still making that mistake today. Snooker had their stinko matches, you never saw them, and they edited out the safety play and showed you the century breaks. If pool had done that straight pool would still be king today and 9 ball would be in the back rooms where it came from and still belongs in.
When you keep just bumping the rack and sliding off of it making safes as JB and IC were doing, eventually you move balls around and a shot opens up. Crane saw a very complex shot in the rack and it was wired tight. It was the same exact great mystery out of the rack shot Gleason shot in the Hustler movie. Crane walks up and coolly calls 2 in the corner out of the rack, everyone in the crowd scratches their head, and nobody can see any shot. The score now is JB 11 to IC ZIP. Bang, Irving goes into the stack and the 2 ball comes back at him out of the stack and pots and the joint goes wild. The rack opened beautifully and the great run began. Rack after rack falls to his perfect stroke and mechanics. He is in a nice flow and playing like in his prime in the 30's.
