Ah, I forgot about Pretty Boy Floyd....a must have on the team.
One of my favorite matches years ago was Jimmy and Keith....
..Keith won hill-hill....and the woofin' was a dead heat.
Keith was ahead 10-9 and got a shot on the 6 (lotta action on this match)
Keith said to the people betting on him "Gentlemen,go to the window."
...and immediately hooked himself on the 7....But Mataya broke dry at
hill-hill and Keith made a flawless out.
Jimmy Mataya could take a loss as good as anybody...he smiled and shook Keith's hand...
...and they went for a beer..Keith was buying..
Best match I've seen like that was Keith vs. Alex at the 2003 U.S. Open 9-Ball.
The place was packed. I was sitting next to Buddy Hall in the stands sweating the match. Keith and Alex were both cutting up and had the crowd in stitches. The table alongside them was Johnny Archer and Howard Vickery. You could have fried an egg on Johnny's head, he was so angry at the distraction. :sorry:
On the TV table, two of the best players on the face of the earth, Efren and Bustie, kept looking over at Keith and Alex's table, watching their match instead of concentrating on their own. They eventually stopped playing, and the TV cameras switched over the Keith and Alex.
Across the stands, Marcus Chamat and Mika Immonen were sitting high in the bleachers. Marcus was laughing so hard, he fell out of his chair. :grin:
Everybody was having fun except me. I was furious at Keith for acting like a clown, dancing around the table on the tips of his toes like a ballerina, chirping between each shot.
Keith finally got on the hill and had a straight-in duck shot on the 9-ball. I mean, I could have made it left-handed, it was so easy. The entire match was a nail-biter, and I was sweating bullets. Finally, Keith gets to shut the door for the almighty win. He addresses the table, bends down to shoot, and then he makes this dramatic pause and says loudly for all to hear, "And you can put this on the Internet." He fired and came with a miss.
I will never forget that feeling. I said to Buddy, "What in the world are we going to do now?" Buddy said, "The only thing you can do is hope for another shot." Keith managed to get another shot the next game, and he won. But the entire back-and-forth was like something I've never seen in pool. Entertaining? Yes, for some. Would the pool purists like it? They would probably not. :grin-square:
All's fair in love and pool, I guess. Here's a shot taken later that night of Alex and Keith in front of the Chesapeake Conference Center. :smile:
