What was your first pool hall?

Scott Lee said:
It was called The Brass Rail. It was open 24 hrs, and was right off I-25N at 58th St. There was a good player by the name of Isadore that played there all the time. This was all in the 70's...and those were the days (I don't know you...you don't know me...let's match up and play some)!
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I knew Izzy. He played a lot in the Family Fun Center. Always wore a leather jacket. Dark hair, thin. Didn't he have a mustach or goatee??
 
Percy...As you probably know, Jack White gave me my start in pool (in college in CO). He is still quite the character. I've done exhibitions for several years at both Lee College and Alvin CC, among other schools in the Houston area. I've also been to Raytown Rec as well...lotsa tables in that place! I spoke with the owner, and he steered me to a guy to play, the last time I was in there. You may not have heard...Mollie passed away a couple of years ago, due to a tragic accident in W. VA. Jack is retired, and still living in S. CA.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

knifemaker said:
I remember going to the La Cue in downtown Houston in the late 60's or early 70's. My sisters boyfriend went there to play and sometimes I got to go. I never played there. Ronnie Allen, Squirrel, Craig Stevens and Jack Briet played there then. My sister knew them all and I would watch them play and play they could. Then in 1974 I joined the USAF and went Missouri. I learned to play at the rec center. A GI named Ken Bernard really played good and started teaching me how. Jack White came to do exibitions in 74 and that got me really started. In 75 Jack White was back and I played him some and he sent me a Palmer L model cue. He ask about me coming to one of his pool classes in Chicago in 76 but I could not go I was on my way overseas. He was a great guy as was Molly his wife also.
Saw them in the early 90's at Lee college in Baytown Texas and he remembered me and we talked awhile. He could tell you the best player in every town you could think of.
Well back to the first pool hall I played in. It was Raytown Recreation in Raytown, Mo. outside of KC. Don Brinks owned it and he played 3 cushion and I would go in and play with him and it was great to learn a little. I played mostly on the 10 ft right inside the door, great old pool table. Well Ronnie Allen came to town to play and he played 1 armed ABE some golf jacked up and he played great that way too. I sat and talked with him and after a little while he said I remember you, you use to come to the La Cue with your big tit sister. Well he was right, the memories are great. Pool always leaves great memories.
Sorry for the long post just the memories.
I would like to find Ken Bernard again, said I would never be able to beat him and in the late 80's we met in Houston and I tourtured him.
Great memories.
Percy/knifemaker
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Scott Lee said:
GetMeThere...That's the guy. Do you remember The Brass Rail? I think it was only open a couple of years.
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No, sorry, never went to The Brass Rail. At the time, I was a student at CSU in Fort Collins--but spent most of my time playing pool (and I doubt I'm the first one to say that :grin: ). A really great player named Willy Alvarez was a janitor at CSU, and he played in the student union all the time. I used to go to Denver 3-4 times a week with him to play. We always played at the Family Fun Center and then, after closing, if we wanted more play we went to the Centenial Center. I've never been anywhere else in Denver.

I HAD been numerous times to a cool little poolroom in Loveland. A guy there had been a table manufacturer, and he retired and started a small poolroom using his own tables. Nice BIG, BEEFY tables!
 
Scott Lee said:
Percy...As you probably know, Jack White gave me my start in pool (in college in CO).
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Hmmm. When I played in the Family Fun Center there was a player everyone called "Whitey." He was an older guy with white hair (but not THAT old); quite short and slim--he probably weighed 120 lbs. He played with a very simple looking cue with an ivory joint--every other cue I ever saw at that time had a metal joint. I never knew his real name. Is that "Whitey?"
 
GetMeThere...Jack White could NEVER be called short or slim. He is (and always has been) about 6'2"/250-270. He always played with steel joint cues (he had several Palmers, due to his friendship with Gene Balner). Back in those days his hair was jet black, and slicked back, like with Brylcreem! LOL He did live in Denver, for awhile, back in the early 60's. Mollie got him his first college "gig" at UCLA, and he took the bus from Denver to Los Angeles.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

GetMeThere said:
Hmmm. When I played in the Family Fun Center there was a player everyone called "Whitey." He was an older guy with white hair (but not THAT old); quite short and slim--he probably weighed 120 lbs. He played with a very simple looking cue with an ivory joint--every other cue I ever saw at that time had a metal joint. I never knew his real name. Is that "Whitey?"
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My old man took me to every place in the Fresno/Clovis CA area when I was a toddler(he was a player). As far as me playing I started at hambones in the great Lubbock TX. The owner would tell me if I could beat him one game I would get table time free. If not I would have to mop the place(no carpet). So, I was always moping!
 
the first place i learned anything was milford rec in milford ct. but i didn't really play, my friends did. i was simply a banger. but around that same time we also played at cool breeze about a half mile down the post rd., in milford. the felt forum in fairfield ct., there was diamond billards in downtown bridgeport and another place on main st. i can't remember some of the names, it's been a long time. there was a small room in danbury we went to a few times (saw allen hopkins shooting there - f*ckin blew my mind to watch him play 9 ball). there was a place in new haven i wish i could remember the name of because a few of my friends swear they watched ct. johnny vivas beat earl strickland - allegedly with a broom stick - i absolutely will not vouch for that story as i was not there, but it makes for good legend. and of course being so close to new york city we made regular pilgrimages to chelsea billiards. that place will always be magic in my mind because it was the first place i saw what real action could look like. milford rec will always be close to my heart as well because i saw everything. how people match up, how they win, loose, laugh, cry, get along and not in the game of pool. the cast of characters was also something to behold some of the people i knew thier real names and some just what they were called. so a roll call to the not so soon forgotten, jimmy dinegris, herb cables, chris wheeler, mike sweeney, ct. johnny vivas, bo, paulie, stalker, bob cleary and his brother, preacher, fat chris, black ron a.k.a. nino brown a.k.a. i'm so black i'm purple, jay "the born loser" and so many more i only have faces and not names for. if you played at milford rec anywhere between 87 and 91 you will know a few of these guys and probobly more send me a pm or post here i love to reminiss about the good old days.
 
9BallPaul said:
I did a thread recently about being a basement player on his own home table, which describes me perfectly today. But then, I'm a broken-down wine-drinking 9-baller who plays against his table, not real opponents. Having my own home bar just adds to the fun, especially when sports are on the tube and I'm in stroke..

Otherwise, it's the Dead, loud.

Anyway, my first pool hall in Denver was Celebrity Lanes on South Colorado Boulebard and East Kentucky Avenue. Owned by the Disney Corp., the place featured 80 lanes, a dozen AMF 9-footers, and four AMF snooker tables. I played there for two years nearly non-stop, and that's where my pool jones took hold. My pal Mickey Urling and I devised many schemes that allowed us access to free pool, and we spent an entire summer watching the sun come up through the glass roof of Celebrity Lanes' swimming pool, which adjoined the pool room.

It's a place where I met many characters described in other posts on these pages. Martin Kaimen, Indian Karl, etc.

I graduated from that room to York Billiards, and eventually to the Family Fun Center, where I still play today. In that room, a guy named Andy Hudson pretty much ruled the roost. He died a few years ago and now the best in town is Mark Haddad.
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i remember the joint all too well. The Fun Center closed each night whenever Russ Trotter got pasted and we all headed to Celebrity. That is where I met, Craig Stevens, Joe Salazar, Joey Torman, Buddy Hall< Grady Matthews, Jr Eldon,Jerry Johnson. Rich Marquez, Ronnie Allen, and I think even San Jose Dick, plus a host of others.
i was young and very impressionable. Joey Torman impressed me so much that the next night I staked him to play Andy Hudson at the Fun Center som $10 p ball. Joey went crazy and won like 18 games in a row. Nobody could be lieve the dump artist won a match. I asked Joey about it years later and asked why he didn't dump me too? he said Andy wouldn't go for it. The weird part is Joey wasn't supposed to win.
 
Swank pool hall 1964, Roosevelt Rd. Glen Ellyn IL, 16 9' GC I's, candy, soda, wall racks full of cues and front counter with New Viking Cues.
 
The first place I ever played pool was in the Shultz Cafe in Marion, TX, when I was 9 or 10.
The place I played in the most was a poolhall in Aurora, CO that was on Dayton St at Montview Blvd. That was from 72-73... Sometimes we kept it open all night.
I cannot remember most of the people I played in the Denver area, although Mike Grano comes to mind, as he gave me a 1925 first edition Thirty Years in Billiards, which I still have. I think I sold him my ebony and ivory Viking.
 
Cushion & Cue in Oak Park, MI, owned by Ray Abrams. Room had the following tables: 14-9' Gandy's; 2-5'x10' snooker; 8-3-cushion; 6-6'x12' snooker; 1 ping pong in a separate room; and a great snack bar (real home-made sandwiches and soups). No liquor, no amusement machines, just pool & billiards.

Of course that was a looooong time ago so please forgive me if I didn't get the total tables right, but I know I am at least close :)).

Dave
 
Pool rooms:

My father owned a pool room called Broadway and Osage pool hall in St. Louis, Mo. It was right across the street from alexshine Brothers Hospital where the Exsorist was suppose to happen at. I used to rack balls in there when you wore a apron to hold the change in. That was back in the 50's and my father and the other old timers would teach me how to play the game. Now I am one of those old guys.
 
i grew up with a table in the house...thanks to the old man,he was a decent shot,but the first billiard parlor i was in was the The Hippodrome Billiards Academy which opened in 1914 in Buffalo, NY. Some of the greatest players in history have passed through their doors, and ran many racks. Players such as Willie Mosconi, Willie Hoppe, Jerome Keogh, Earl Strickland, Minnesota Fats, and many others have played there.
 
Winks Poolroom in Forest Park Plaza in the early 60's in Dayton, Ohio. It later became Forest Park Billiards after Joe Burns took it over. It was behind the shopping center and you walked down a long dark hall to get in. Kind of a clandestine poolroom. But once inside, it was a real pool hall; full of outlaws, thieves, and other assorted hustlers. I got my degree in pool hall education in that place.

They had about 16-18 oversized 8' Brunswick Sport Kings, a very common table in midwestern pool rooms during that era. Damn good tables by the way, solid as a rock. It was the beginning of phenolic balls in the 60's, but there were still rooms around with clay balls. Dayton had many poolrooms back then, at least thirty or forty. It was a thriving city with dozens of large factories like Delco-Moraine, Frigidare, Inland Manufacturing, Dayton Tire and Rubber, Kimberly Clark, NCR (huge) and several others. It wasn't hard to get a job back then.

This meant lots of guys who would come into the poolrooms on their days off and get hustled by the regulars. The hustlers used to line up near the door and take turns picking them off as they came in. I aspired to make that line-up. Lofty ambitions indeed! I left Dayton in 1967 for the Army and then the road for a few years, eventually settling in California. When I returned in 1973 for the big Joe Burn's bash, none of the old hustlers could beat me anymore. I played a couple of guys who used to prey on me and they quit very quickly. Some small solace for my misspent youth. :smile:

One guy who was a star athlete (and acquaintance) in high school came to the tournament to watch me play. After the match, he told me how impressed he was with my ability at pool, a game he was not so good at. Somehow that made me feel good, that I could impress a great young athlete (all-city in basketball). Little did he know, that the last ten years of my life were all pool, every day!
 
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Bakers game room in Greensboro NC in 1989. Small place 8 tables i think. had a lil grill that served the best unhealthy food i ever had. I was 18 and got hooked instantly. Place was always full of great players and characters. Seemed like there was always something going on. Just off the top of my head heres a few of the players that i remember on regular basis. a young 15 yr old Stevie Moore,15 yr old Tony Watson, Cliff Joyner before he played one-pocket, Pete Horn, Harold Dollar, Sparky Ferrell, Brad Motko, Tireman, Neptune Joe Frady, LottsaPoppa, Roanoke Red, Steve Silas Carter, Bud Osborne, oh yeah and guy named Earl Strickland also called bakers home. Too many road players that came thru to mention. Got to see some great action between players that we call legends today. Man was i lucky. 20 yrs later and i still miss it
 
cuesblues said:
Hey Paul,

I actually have Marty's old Viking tube case

Here's a few that I remember:

Varsity 8-Ball-first job in 1967
Celebrity Sports Center-open all night
Family Fun Center-lots of wiseguys
York Billiards
AAA
Golden Cue
Colfax Billiards
Civic Center Billiards
Centennial Billiards
Sheridan Billiards

Several downtown and on South Broadway, Aurora, even Colorado Springs & Boulder.
I can't remember all of the names, but there were a ton of rooms in Denver back in the day.

Peace

Ted
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I remember them all, pal. Good hearing from you again.
 
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