Tony Annigoni suicide

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
AZHP: Why not contact -- via FB, Twitter, direct phone call, email, etc.) -- David McCumber and see what can be worked out with getting that chapter or a summary of it from Dave himself (if ensuing availability wouldn't violate any years-old contractual or copyright agreements).

I'm sure he'd be able/willing to share all (or most) details about that unpublished chapter if he's legally able to do so.

I loved reading his book and look forward to hearing more about that "no go" chapter.

Arnaldo
Great thought. I'd love to hear mccumber talk about his dunk into the pool...pool.
 

L.S. Dennis

Well-known member
A fine player indeed, he was definitely one of the three top short stops in the Bay Area during the late eighties and nineties. I remember reading his first cue was a gifted Willie Hoppe cue.
 

maha

from way back when
Silver Member
i did think about my post before i wrote it. and understand the effect it may have and it can hurt some.
but just because someone is dead it doesnt mean his past gets buried with him. it hurts if you knew him and liked or had an attachment. sorry for that, but things sometimes need to be said even if you dont agree with hearing them. and if you only wanted nice things said maybe dont post in the thread how great he was and expect everyone will agree with you. i for one dont. and many others may still harbor bad will . whether they say it or not they may very well think it.. i chose to say it.
maybe not in your mind but in mine he screwed many people and lied about and never made it right. he also set back tournament pool and ruined it for many near in california where he lived and reno as well.
 

bud green

Dolley and Django
Silver Member
I was actually there for a lot of the stories in his book...some interesting stuff happened at the Sands in Reno.

Talked to him for a good bit, watched him play in the tourney and beat Louis Lemke 10 ahead for 5500 in less than 2 hours gambling there.

It is a fact, however poor the timing of the controversial post may be, that he ended up burning a lot of bridges in the Northern California area and did have his detractors.

All that said, he was a great player, an interesting personality, and I truly wish things would have worked out differently somehow.

I've lost family and close friends to suicide and it f##king sucks.
 

justnum

Billiards Improvement Research Projects Associate
Silver Member
letting go of anger before or after someone dies can matter to some people

people try to take a shot and some miss and some hit.

any death stories are like a tune up

death is not pleasant
 

Jaden

"no buds chill"
Silver Member
i did think about my post before i wrote it. and understand the effect it may have and it can hurt some.
but just because someone is dead it doesnt mean his past gets buried with him. it hurts if you knew him and liked or had an attachment. sorry for that, but things sometimes need to be said even if you dont agree with hearing them. and if you only wanted nice things said maybe dont post in the thread how great he was and expect everyone will agree with you. i for one dont. and many others may still harbor bad will . whether they say it or not they may very well think it.. i chose to say it.
maybe not in your mind but in mine he screwed many people and lied about and never made it right. he also set back tournament pool and ruined it for many near in california where he lived and reno as well.
I have nothing bad to say about him. He was always cool to me. The thing that bothers me is the hypocrisy... When he was alive if anyone brought him up, all it was about was how he was a thief and ripped everyone off and never returned money owed, etc. I can't stand how people are so non-genuine that if someone dies all of a sudden they're the best person and no one should bring up the bad.

Instead of sugar coating someone's life, maybe telling the truth about them can help those living. Maybe if people understand the things he did that may have contributed to his feeling that he needed to take his own life (never the way out IMO), they can avoid making those same mistakes.

All I can say is people shouldn't be berating MAHA too much for speaking up with how he feels Negative emotions sometimes need to be vented too. In fact, anger is one of the stages of grief...

Jaden
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
O
Thanks for the confirmation Jay. I believe it now. You came up a lot in our conversations. He thought very highly of you. He was so funny and clever. I'm really saddened to hear this. I used to use the swipe method to apply sidespin, so he nicknamed me 'windshield wiper.' I used to chase him around the pool room for that one, even though it was a pretty good description. He bought me a whole salami once just because I was Italian, so then he nick-named me 'Salami.' And like you, Jay, I was really mad at him for the mess in Reno but I really felt that there was nothing malicious intended, but he just didn't have a solution and he handled it badly. I stood up for him in forums when everyone else pounded on him.
Tony also spoke highly of you Fran. He admired your intelligence and told me how smart you are. He laughed when he talked about you, a sign of how much he liked you. I know he valued you as a friend, one who stood by him in his worst moments.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
Did Tony own a bar in Monterey called Bosso’s?

Have had a few drinks there in my day, and the owner at the time went by the same name.
Probably it was him. Not too many with that name. Tony owned and partnered in many pool related businesses in his life.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
maybe he was pushed off the bridge. he screwed a lot of people that had put trust in him and then lied about it.
or maybe he finally realized how he hurt so many others and got even with himself.
i wont miss him in this world. and for me anyway i dont eulogize the bad just because they are dead.

"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.
william shakespear
You may be right here to a certain extent. Tony knew how disappointed I was in how he handled the aftermath of the Peppermill fiasco. I reminded him when he finally called me all these years later, that he would not return my calls to him back then. He still had the same cell number.
 

Dead Money

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I did not know Tony A. other than stories here and of course from POTR. I do know something about suicides, attempted and successful. Always a very sad thing.

Edited thank you JusticeNJ.
 
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L.S. Dennis

Well-known member
Another one of Tony’s many talents aside from being a great pool player was his ability to set up a billiard room.
I remember during the early 90’s when he set out to refurbish the old Cochran’s room on Market street into the the new Q-Club and how the finished product was a real first class pool room. Unfortunately it was some years too late for that location (read bad) that worked well during the Cochran’s days of the early 60’s but was untenable in the 90’s. Too bad it was a beautiful room and beautifully done right down to the J.T.S. Brown prominently displayed behind the beautiful mahogany bar. He even had the old cue lockers refurbished to look like new again.

If were Bill Gates and I wanted a first class pool room set up somewhere done right with money not being an issue, Tony would be the one to talk to.
 

Dead Money

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The poster couldn't even spell his name right, and wildly plucked the quote well out of context, likely without realizing that the quote, perhaps, was aimed not only at Caesar but his "critics" as well. They like appearing as if they like the Bard, but managed to actually insult themselves in the process in poetic fashion. Antony's referral to "brutish beasts" (a redundancy that someone like Shakespeare would not suffer without cause) was no accident considering his speech was partly aimed at Brutus.

After all, Brutus is more remembered for his evil betrayal when compared to Caesar. Remember that when casting judgment on someone you think is worthy of condemnation and acting like absolute ass when speaking ill of the departed.
In light of this I will edit what I posted about Maha.
 

Biloxi Boy

Man With A Golden Arm
There is a proper time and place for everything. None of us are perfect or anywhere near it: we all have incidents in our lives that we would prefer everyone, ourselves included, forget. No matter what is said now, no matter how loud or how often said, the dead will not hear. At this point, the only persons to be hurt by inappropriate comments are innocent and already fully aware of Tony's failures.

As fallible human beings shouldn't we pray that upon death we not be judged by our worst actions?
 

dardusm

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I had the chance years ago to watch Tony play a few times here in the Midwest. Solid player and he loved the game that he spent his life around. The few times I spoke to him he was very cordial. Yes, he had some serious issues with the way he handled the Reno tournament. But, I still feel it's in bad taste to bring that stuff up at a time like this. To each his own but I feel it's inappropriate.
 

whiteoak

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I just heard.he jumped off the Golden Gate. Who knows more about this?
Terribly sad and tragic news. I didn’t know Tony well but years ago at Derby,my Son and I were having as many people who were in “Playing Off The Rail” sign our copy of the book. Tony was very gracious and nice to visit with. RIP and Prayers to his Family and friends.
 

SBC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
There's a time and place for everything. Now isn't the time to disparriage a dead man in a forum where others were mourning him.

That said, if every player/promoter who screwed someone for cash was thrown of the bay bridge....it soon wouldn't be much of a fall.
 
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AtLarge

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Whenever I have heard about Tony Annigoni, I have thought again about a passage from Playing Off The Rail. I have posted it several times now, but maybe some new eyes will see it here. It's the best short thing I've ever read about the appeal of the game of pool (or billiards). Beauty ... heart ... renewal -- it's all there in two brief paragraphs.

Playing Off The Rail, by David McCumber, Random House, 1996, pages 276-277. It is presented as the author's thoughts while watching a masterfully played 9-ball match.​
"Tony broke, and made two balls, and I could see the table unfold in my mind, and I knew he could see it even better, and would run it. As he made the shots I was overpowered by the beauty of this game, at once immutably logical, governed by physical inevitabilities, and at the same time infinitely poetic and varied. This game at its best, as it was being played before me, had the transcendent power of a Handel chorus.​
I thought about what an impressive mental exercise it was for Tony, after a miserable session against an unremarkable player two hours earlier, to reinvent himself so completely. It was a question of heart, a gathering of everything stored inside a man, a refusal to fall after stumbling. It was a very rare thing for a player to take such advantage of the game's intrinsic quality of renewal, the fresh start with each match, each rack, each shot. Nothing pharmaceutical could ever exceed the jolt of bliss that comes with the self-mastery that sort of play entails: knowing the ball is going in, knowing the cue ball is going to stop precisely where you willed it to, knowing that the next shot is going in too. I thought of Willie Hoppe, running an astonishing twenty-five billiards in an exhibition in 1918, seeing all those rails and angles and spins and caroms in his head like presents waiting to be opened. It was no accident that Hoppe was the most disciplined and controlled player of his era. Power over the cue ball, over the object ball, is power over ourselves. It is the sweetest irony that pool has gathered the reputation of being a game for louts and idlers, when, to be played well, it demands such incredible discipline of movement, of thinking, of emotion."​
 
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