Pool was a job for Mosconi. If someone had offered Willie any kind of dough, *any* kind of finical incentive, he would have torn at it and the record would have been far loftier than 526. No doubt.
Lou Figueroa
The True Record Hi Run
- Thread starter billinboston
- Start date
Pool was a job for Mosconi. If someone had offered Willie any kind of dough, *any* kind of finical incentive, he would have torn at it and the record would have been far loftier than 526. No doubt.
Lou Figueroa
If being the guy who broke Mosconi's record isn't enough incentive, you don't deserve to break it, IMO.
Lou Figueroa
I don't doubt that. But I believe the top players of today play better, as in have more skill. Maybe their knowledge of straight pool and patterns aren't as good. On net though I still think a few come out slightly ahead of Mosconi and could break the record right now. But here is the thing. The straight pool knowledge and patterns can be learned and they can and would learn the most efficient and correct way to play the game and it wouldn't take long if they put their mind to it. So now you have a few players with more skill and the same knowledge of patterns. Record shattered.
This is pretty silly if you think about it IMO. They would have to buy an equivalent 8 ft Brunswick table and put it in their house, because nobody is going to spend weeks at the pool hall trying this. And that would likely require getting rid of or at least moving and storing the 9 ft that they currently have. Then they would have to devote their lives spending all day for several weeks trying to set the record. The whole time keeping up with the hassle of having video cameras rolling at all times because the world will demand proof. And all this just for the heck of it, earning little if anything or even taking a loss for their efforts, just so they can claim a record which is for all practical purposes meaningless from a game that has been dead at least 40 years? To think that anybody would make any serious effort to break the record just doesn't make sense. Now offer a reward that makes it worth it and you will see that record get beat, and quickly.
But this is one of those things that is like politics. People are going to go around and around on this for the ages (until somebody breaks the record one day without really even setting out to do it). Neither one of us are going to know for sure if today's players can break it until there is enough incentive to justify the effort in giving it a serious try.
In my books, the record is 200, set last summer by Darren Appleton in competition.
The exhibition record of 526 is just that, an exhibition record, and most feel that Eufemia ran quite a few more than that in an exhibition format.
The practice run record is 768 by Babe Cranfield, one of his two runs over 700, but a practice run is a practice run and should not be counted as the record.
The best runs are the ones with the words "and out." Such runs did not end with a miss but instead with a win. Great straight pool is about winning and it is his extraordinary ability to win countless tournaments in the continuing presence of guys like Irving Crane, Luther Lassiter, Jimmy Caras, Babe Cranfield, Joe Balsis, Eddie Kelly and other greats of 14.1 that makes Mosconi the greatest.
To be honest, I don't think that many pool players know about Mosconi's run and I don't see it as very important one way or another whether Mosconi's record or Cranfield's record are broken.
I do, however, hope I'm present if Appleton's record is bettered.
The exhibition record of 526 is just that, an exhibition record, and most feel that Eufemia ran quite a few more than that in an exhibition format.
The practice run record is 768 by Babe Cranfield, one of his two runs over 700, but a practice run is a practice run and should not be counted as the record.
The best runs are the ones with the words "and out." Such runs did not end with a miss but instead with a win. Great straight pool is about winning and it is his extraordinary ability to win countless tournaments in the continuing presence of guys like Irving Crane, Luther Lassiter, Jimmy Caras, Babe Cranfield, Joe Balsis, Eddie Kelly and other greats of 14.1 that makes Mosconi the greatest.
To be honest, I don't think that many pool players know about Mosconi's run and I don't see it as very important one way or another whether Mosconi's record or Cranfield's record are broken.
I do, however, hope I'm present if Appleton's record is bettered.
Real pool players do.
Unless you're talking about folks that show up to league once a week and get drunk, then I agree.
To the other point of your post [unquoted] regarding only runs in competition counting. The problem with that is the runs are capped. You can only run 150/200 & out. Even if the TD allowed you to keep going, it's essentially an exhibition at that point since the match is over.
Pfffttt!
I won't be impressed until someone does a 527 on a 3X6.
I won't be impressed until someone does a 527 on a 3X6.
Reading comprehension is a handy skill to master...
To stat with - as stated a gazillion times, if some one sets up a break shot and runs
balls till he misses, then tries again, and again, hour after hour, day after day. If he runs
2001 balls - that would not break Willie's record because that is not how Willie set his.
At some point while you were not looking, the discussion morphed into who was the
best player. A really smart person pointed out the 526 run was only one accomplishment, and far from the most significant.
Sad to say, as a culture we tend to focus on things like "records". Perhaps
because they are easy to understand - that is unless it's the 14.1 high run record.
Do you suppose there was a single person in America who, at the end of the 1961
Baseball season, thought Roger Maris was a better baseball player than
George Herman Ruth?
Dale
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I love 14.1 and have played it since 1969 but the straight pool era ended over thirty years ago. Fewer and fewer players have ever heard of the game or the players of the golden age of straight pool. My guess I that if somebody ran 1,000 in an exhibition at some point, the DVD still wouldn't be a big seller.
In our sport, excellence has never been measured by the record books, but in titles won. Is there a sport in which the records are paid less attention to than pool?
Good points - but you couldn't run 200 in competition in the time when Mosconi, et al
were competing unless you were waaaay behind in a block format, or you started
the game by taking about 20 intentional scratches
. Would you agree that if there were a format that accommodated it, Willie would have run 200 many times?
And several other players as well.
Dale
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Good points - but you couldn't run 200 in competition in the time when Mosconi, et al
were competing unless you were waaaay behind in a block format, or you started
the game by taking about 20 intentional scratches
that accommodated it, Willie would have run 200 many times?
And several other players as well.
Dale
Willie played some matches to 1,000....and I'm pretty he played some
that were longer.
True enough. But those were Block format, as mentioned. So yes, there were instances
where he could have run 200 or more. Just not very many.
Dale
The objective information I've mentioned several times already, did you read the thread? Humans are better at 99.9+% of sports or activities than they were 60 years ago. The very best person is better, and the depth of field is better.
Sorry, but it is you my friend that needs the reading comprehension lesson. At no time prior to your post above which I just quoted have we discussed or mentioned anything about how valid a run is or isn't based on the circumstances surrounding it.
But since you are bringing it up to me just now for the first time, I don't think it makes much difference, unless it is in competition verses not in competition. For all you know the layout Mosconi started with when he set the record was as good or better than your typical break shot with ball in hand. But even if he started off with a horrible table, at best all that does is put an asterisk by the first 14 balls made by the guy that breaks the record starting with a ball in hand break shot. After that their runs are identical by anyone's standards. And Mosconi's wasn't done in competition, so it isn't different in that respect from someone today doing it by themselves either.
You think what you want to, but if someone today breaks the record by any amount even playing at home by themselves starting with a ball in hand break shot I consider the record broken. And if the record is broken by more than 14 balls even you are the rest of the world have to acknowledge it as a better run than Mosconi's and has no asterisks involved.
As for who is the best player. Several of today's players are better than Mosconi.
As for the baseball stuff. I don't know and I don't care. Not a baseball fan--at all.
This is just silly Name one...
This is just silly... Name one
It seems to me that when people speak about Mr. Mosconi they tend to be speaking of a elderly gentleman who hated fats and did trick shots they are not speaking of the ball pocketing monster that was Willie Mosconi world pocket billiard champion.
I am going to pull a quote from RA Dyers book The hustler and the champ page 106
Mr Dyer is writing about the 1941 world championship season around 200, 125 point straight pool matches verses a whos who of the hall of fame. Played on 5 x 10 tables all over country.
"On fifty occasions nearly one fourth of all his games played, Mosconi ran one hundred or more."
Name one pro player today who can run at least a 100 balls 25% of the time on a 5 x 10 table in competition!
and remember we are talking about this willie
Not this one
This is just silly... Name one
It seems to me that when people speak about Mr. Mosconi they tend to be speaking of a elderly gentleman who hated fats and did trick shots they are not speaking of the ball pocketing monster that was Willie Mosconi world pocket billiard champion.
I am going to pull a quote from RA Dyers book The hustler and the champ page 106
Mr Dyer is writing about the 1941 world championship season around 200, 125 point straight pool matches verses a whos who of the hall of fame. Played on 5 x 10 tables all over country.
"On fifty occasions nearly one fourth of all his games played, Mosconi ran one hundred or more."
Name one pro player today who can run at least a 100 balls 25% of the time on a 5 x 10 table in competition!
and remember we are talking about this willie
Not this one
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IMO, long runs are all about how easy you make it. Mosconi made it the easiest.
Lou Figueroa
Yes, what you say is true about pool players and certainly Efren is arguably the greatest pool player of all time. However, the discipline we're specifically talking about is 14.1 and you are trying to compare guys that play that game once or twice a year with guys who spent a lifetime mastering it. Willie would smoke _____ (fill in modern era player of your choice and that includes Efren) in a long race or lock them in rooms with a table for $10K and see who produces the highest run in 48 hours. It's not going to be close.
Lou Figueroa
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Oh bullshit. You're a smart guy so please explain how players today have more skill ? The game is the same. Leather tips are still in fashion. Balls, chalk, rubber rails...etc. Physics and science are still the same. I suppose with the dawn of the internet we will see the pyramids of Giza coming soon to your neighborhood. Not going to happen. I'm not saying the record won't fall, but I'm not selling 21st century Kool Aid. Secretariat is still the fastest thoroughbred and technology isn't the same.