Willie Mosconi's High Run

[AtLarge]

... When Willie arrived at the pool hall, he was already tired from playing a exhibition and then driving a long distance to reach his 2nd exhibition that day ...

Matt -- what is your source for that information (that it was his second exhibition of the day and that he was already tired)? It's not in his autobiography. Thanks.

 

[Bavafongoul]

Gosh.....I Couldn't Tell You The Exact Footnote Source

Let me look for that source info.....I recall that Willie reached the pool hall in the early afternoon was looking to catch an early dinner. Willie had just run out the 150 and the crowd kept urging to keep it going, etc. I have a lot of stuff tucked away in the garage and I'll look for it this weekend.

 

[MCP]

art

Willie Mosconi = Art on a pool table.
Mcp

 

[bondsman]

Most excellent post.

Yes Teddy, George was a great player and very under-mentioned. I saw Ginky before he past and he was still speaking of George. Whatever became of Paul who owned a banner and pennant company?

BTW< if you remember me, this is Eddie Johnson. I was friend of Slim and owned a small store on St Marks. Glad to see you are doing well. I am living and thriving in Angeles City, Philippines. Efren also lives here sometimes.

 

[Old Nine Baller]

When I was in Albuquerque I spent a lot of time with Jimmy Moore who ran 2nd to Mosconi a number times. Jimmy could play and we talked about a lot of pool players and Mosconi was the only one he talked about with a sense of awe. He said Willie did not play straight pool like everyone else as for the most part he did not blast into the stack to break the balls up, he would break out a few and when he broke them up he knew where they were going he left nothing to chance. He also told me Willie would play 9 ball for money but he always made people bet high as he loved to put the pressure on and he never lost. He said he watched Willie give a good player the 5 ball on a 5X10 and won every game. In Jimmy's opinion Willie was on another level much like Efren in his prime at one pocket no one had a chance. That is all you can say coming from a guy that was in the ring with him.

I never saw Mosconi play in person but I've seen him plenty on T.V. and in videos. This particular part of his game is what always amazed me. Most of us (& them) hit the ball a little hard when breaking up clusters because we are afraid of not getting a next shot. Willie didn't do that. The same way that Efren doesn't do it when playing One-Pocket. They both know/knew where ALL of the balls were going to end up. This is their genius.

Great comment.

ONB

 

[Island Drive]

Willie Mosconi = Art on a pool table.
Mcp

Yep, he's top of the heap, along with the other Great Italians like DiMaggio, Tommy LaSorta, Paterno and on and on. Willie was like the Italian Babe Ruth.

 

[lfigueroa]

<tagging Lou as I hop into the ring>

Without a doubt - IMHO - those who have only seen Willie on TV or videos, and not
in person, have no idea how smooth his stroke was. And not just his stroke, it
was like he was floating around the table. He made running balls look like a stroll
in the park.

I used to say "Fred Astaire just WISHED he was as smooth as Mosconi".

And while I'm up on this soapbox - can we give the 'big pocket' myth a rest.
5 1/2 inches is a mis-statement<lie> based on misunderstanding. I have talked
to a very respectable 'shortstop' who played on the very table... many times. It
was exactly typical of pool hall tables of that era.

And besides, anyone who saw him, like Lou has, knows that 90% + of his shots,
he could have pocketed in 3 inch pockets - 12 inches from the OB, 10 degrees off
dead straight in, pocket speed perfect...
followed by 12 inches from the OB, 10 degrees off dead straight...

You get the idea.

Dale(who only wishes his vocabulary was good enough to think of words like 'fluid')

Willie and Fred Astaire were friends and Willie would sometimes stay at his house. I think it's common knowledge that Astaire loved pool and had a table in his living room and played with a Ginacue Ernie had made for him. Willie and Astaire would often play at his house in Hollywood.

To the point about dancing, Willie's family had a dancing act, the Dancing Mosconis, that toured Vaudeville as part of the Ziegfeld Follies and headlined the Palace Theater many times. At one point while he was still very young Willie's dad enrolled him in a dancing class with his uncle. But he was no good at dancing. But he did turn out to be very good on the pool table at the back of the rehearsal hall.

Nonetheless, some of that dancing must have stuck with him because, almost universally, people that saw him play said he looked like a dancer walking around the table, sometimes walking backwards to reach the next shot more quickly. He was a very graceful player.

Lou Figueroa

 

[Baby Huey]

This is the first post where Danny Harriman and John Schmidt agree on Mosconi's talent. Wow and I respect the hell out of both of them. They are great 14.1 players and the best we have in the USA. I am 66 yrs. old and in the mid 1960's I watched Mosconi in at least a dozen exhibitions for Brunswick Billiards during the Family Billiards Boom. I saw him run 100 balls every single time on the first try. I also saw him come in with Phil Specter of Rock n' Roll fame and offer several players the seven ball playing nine ball at the Ye Billiard Den in Hollywood. There were no takers. I am talking about players like Larry Hubbard and Ed Kelly. I only met him personally one time as we had a mutual friend and believe it or not he was a very modest kind person. But, if you got him to the table he would cut your heart out.