What Earl And Sigel Told Me

[sjm]

...now mike sigel sitting at the bar one night was telling larry schwartz and i, you know the shots that people play today that are supposed to be fantastic? well, i invented them. for instance the kick and stick shot, when your kicking behind the ball from the lengeth of the table,and the object ball goes up table and the cue ball stops in it's tracks, well, i invented that".....

As others have noted, the kick safe exists in games other than nine ball, and therefore, existed prior to Mike's first appearance on the pro pool scene.

Nonetheless, before Texas Express nine ball, one could "push out" in the middle of the rack, so kicking wasn't terribly common or important. The early 1980's, when Texas Express became prevalent, coincided with Sigel's rise to superstardom. It is, at very least, possible, that Mike was one of those who first popularized the use of the kick safe in nine ball.

 

[Tommy-D]

> He might not have invented the kick/stick,or as Grady called it in an Accu-Stats tape,the "greek" shot,but he WAS certainly the pioneer of another very common shot used today,where you use inside spin and draw to move 3 rails around the table from a cut shot out in the middle of the table,like this.

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%\U0N6%]C7O1%^O1C3%eA3a8%_`0P8%`X9T7%aO5Z8
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> I asked Buddy Hall about this,and he said Mike was using it back in the 70's,to take the cue ball from a path where you cross your position zone,to a path where you come directly into it. Tommy D.

 

[Icon of Sin]

I found this to be the best part of this post...

ok, here is some interesting stuff. sitting around the bar one night in reno, earl was talking to a bunch of us players...

Bernie thinks he is one of the players... LOL

 

[nbc]

Just for pure entertainment (read: comedy) value alone, Bernie's posts are right there at the top of the heap.