Agree 100%. Has ZERO relevance to modern pool. Shotstop was strictly a term used back in the good ol days of action and road players.
What is a Shortstop?
- Thread starter sjm
- Start date
The thread was started in 2004! It was already an antique term then
Making it relative to today…. Do we think a 700 player could have made it on the road in 1970? 720? 740? Etc? What minimum FargoRate would have let him survive 2 years straight “on the road”.
Let’s assume he was also good with the ladies and had a lot of places to have a hot shower and warm bed
Let’s assume he was also good with the ladies and had a lot of places to have a hot shower and warm bed
Back in the day a 'real' ss could flat play. Would beat any local wanna-be and it took a good player to beat them. They often traveled with a top player and would make a lot of money. The top player wouldn't have to play unless the action was too tough for his partner. Buddy told a funny story where him and his partner went in this place and Buddy acted like the stakehorse. When the local hotshot couldn't beat BH's partner he said he'd play his backer aka Buddy Hall. Well, you know how this little tale ends.The thread was started in 2004! It was already an antique term then
If they picked their spots right sure they could have made money. Most of the really easy/sweet money was in the bars and the good players usually hung out at the 'hall. You could make a lot of money and never have to play tough action. In Okla/Tex/Kan. with all the oil money it wasn't uncommon to be playing suckers $40/game on a big bucket Valley. Talk about stealing.Making it relative to today…. Do we think a 700 player could have made it on the road in 1970? 720? 740? Etc? What minimum FargoRate would have let him survive 2 years straight “on the road”.
Let’s assume he was also good with the ladies and had a lot of places to have a hot shower and warm bed
I got a lot of that money, secondhand. I never jacked the bet over five dollars. The guys trying to hustle the blue collar guys eventually got to me in my rough clothes. Didn't hurt that I often worked industrial construction or as a mechanic or body man. I looked the part, hell I was the part!
There was a large group of guys on the fringe. They gambled at anything, often cheating at cards and dice. They also played pool with the guys that had worked hard all day and were focused more on drinking beer than anything else, maybe finding a piece of trim. It was pretty funny, these fringe people usually stalled and insisted on letting me win, raising the bet until it got to twenty or fifty a game. Then they let the ponies run. I was usually still choked up a little bit while I plucked them like chickens. Because of their early stalling I often did it all on their money!
I was young and single and had no great dislike of watching young ladies dance so their gigolos were often who I took the money from. A favorite spot just had a wall and an unlocked door between the pool room and a naked dancing lady place. A handful of times a lady in working uniform would come storming into the pool room. "I am working my ass off and you are taking all my money!" I didn't feel bad, they were running their own hustles. I think prostitution closed down both businesses.
Somebody commented they had never heard a female called a shortstop. I haven't either but I definitely knew a couple back in the seventies. Without the internet many men were convinced no woman could beat them at pool and these ladies that could shoot would take them to the cleaners purely on ego!
There was a time when a very low B player, maybe even a high C could get by playing pool. Of course it took a lot less to get by then! There was one place with an old nine foot table that ran twenty-four/seven. The usual stake was three dollars a game and they only sold beer. I went in one day and my running buddy had been in there for three days straight, taking all comers. He had gotten up to over five hundred at three a game and was down to about $150 when I drug him out to buy food for his family. He barely knew where he was at!
A lot of the fringe people were small time criminals, occasionally one would make a big move and go to Angola State Farm to learn how to farm for fifteen cents an hour. That was back in the sixties and seventies. Last I knew they were paying inmates twelve cents an hour, a major cut in pay! Anyway, I was the handsome fellow in my avatar so it wasn't too uncommon for somebody to want to play for dope when they went broke. I often did it to hammer home the fact they were busted but then I would escort them to the bathroom. "Dump!" They would cry like babies but I wasn't touching more than a joint of pot. Louisiana was famous for a guy getting twelve years for a joint and the tiniest bit over an ounce made you a dealer with pretty much mandatory time in Angola coming. Any hard drug like coke or heroin got you a stay on the farm too. It was mine though so I made them flush it!
The good old days. Despite all the changes I think if I was twenty again I could hustle a living if I needed to. I never spent over a few weeks on the road at a time or made a living shooting pool for longer than months at a time but I knew, and know, the moves. Mostly just making myself available. I was one of the best at hitting pocket points.
If anybody is wondering, yes I know I have given likes to ancient posts. Almost all in memory of friends gone.
Hu
Talk about the good ole days. I was never (probably) above 625-650 but when I was low on money I could go to almost any bar in the middle of the day on a weekday and make 80-100 and be out of there before it got too rowdy.
Many of the guys who I knew back then who made a full time living at it (as in, didn't have a job) were in that same 625-650 range with a couple jumping up close to 700.
That seemed to be the sweet spot for making money in the bars. Any better and you had trouble hiding it or being recognized. Any worse and you couldn't guarantee a win if they called in someone. Of course, sometimes they had a real heavy on speed dial.
Told this story before but it is a chuckle about the phone. I rarely went over to the rich side of town, a bunch of sniveling bitches and the girls weren't much better. However I had been pounding the north side of town and I didn't feel like driving far to get to my more distant honey holes. I went to the rich side of town and a guy tried to high roll me then double up to get his losses back. A couple hours and he didn't even have lint in his pockets. "Mind if I call someone?" He had a world beater that was his cousin best I recall. It was shy of midnight which meant I could get a couple hours in on the table with the fresh player.
He called, his cousin grumbled he had to work the next day but rich kid said I had a wad of money in my pocket and had barely beat him, the game was a lock. The cousin came in the door and took one look. "HU!" Then he cursed the rich kid out. His cousin was from the north side of town and needed more balls than he knew I would give to try to play me. I got a good laugh but I wasn't real happy. I had waited over thirty minutes while he woke up, showered, and came for the easy pickings.
Crazy things happened. I damned near got lynched in the middle of nowhere. It seemed a stranger had came through town and cleaned them out less than a week before and didn't leave them with beer money! Nothing to do with me but their toes were mighty tender when it came to strangers!
We ran into the occasional shortstop and I sometimes played the shortstop when road players came to me but unless stopping in a major pool hub the odds were probably nine in ten or better the road player was going to win.
Hu
No stories but I always figured a shortstop was just that. Walk in, pump up, leave. Obviously they only exist from a champ perspective but wuttevuh.
I probably posted this already.
I probably posted this already.
I'm not claiming I'm right but I've always thought the term shortstop came from the fact that Major League shortstops, while good enough to play in the Major League often had relatively low batting averages -- i.e. they often were not good hitters. According to my friend AI this was because defense came first and it's hard to develop shortstop defensive skills. So applying this to pool, a shortstop has good skills but can't bat (play) like the best players.
TheRooster
Member
Dr. Dave’s rating comparison chart lists upper and lower shortstop. I think this ability level lines up pretty well with how people use the term.
To me it's a term from the gambling world, doesn't really apply well to tournament pool. There are usually only one, maybe two, shortstops in a room. Greenway was an exception, often a handful of shortstops there.
I don't remember ever calling somebody a shortstop that didn't gamble although they might play at that level. One reason people struggle to define shortstop, it is as much a position as a skill level. The shortstop in one area might be A level, another area you may run into somebody playing at top pro level that doesn't like to travel or can't travel for some reason. At my best I was somewhere in between. I played anyone head's up if they came to me on my home turf. I was in the road players' book in the early days, never got to read it. I had a pretty good idea what it said anyway if the referring players were honest. Always wondered how many admitted they came out on the short end!
Hu
Really I feel like either…
- I never hear anyone use the term in modern parlance, or
- It’s stolen valor by ~600 FargoRate players aura farming by self labeling
I go by how long it takes to empty them. More subjective as they say in the Aim Pit. Take note. I'm not the emptier.
Your definition kind of fits what I have thought it meant. Not a touring pro level player, but still a local champion. He is the local guy that you have have to beat to get out of the place with any real money. Just as in baseball you have to get the ball past the shortstop to get on base. The shortstop in baseball also makes a lot of what seem to be impossible plays. And the shortstop in pool may take the road player or pro pool player down also at times.