I wish I could shoot pool
doubledragon
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I spent a lot of my younger days in pool halls, playing straight pool and 9-ball, wasn't ever much good at it. The game requires tremendous concentration and accuracy, and being able to think and see 3,4,5 shots ahead and being able to set those shots up, extremely difficult game to master.
Tell the story, or else...
i love pool because it's the only sport i've ever played in which there's not an inverse correlation between my peak ability and level of drunkenness. if i'm stone cold sober i start overanalyzing and can't put a ball in a meteorite crater. but the moment imbibing commences, i start wielding a pool stick like i'm minnesota fats.
definitely not the case when i play golf, however. i've been playing for 40 years and can think of one time when i was trashed on a course. let's just say that people, cars and houses were in serious jeopardy that day. the absolute safest place to be was the middle of the fairway or near the hole.
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
Seriously, tell the story.
I have Willie Mosconi's autograph.
i'll post it if I can find it. 😐
Rudolf Wanderone
I knew you were going to find your way into this thread and bring it up. Ok, one last time, I was hanging out at a bowling alley back in the early 90s and they had an arcade room with a pool table in it, I was in my early teens 16 or so, so I didn't have that much money on me, just $3.00 to be exact. So I go into the arcade and want to shoot some pool and there's this woman in there hogging the table. I'm standing there watching her shoot for a while and she knows I'm watching and she was horrible, missing nearly every shot she took. So after a while she finally knocks in all the balls and finishes her game and asks me if I want to play a friendly game for some money, I told her I only had a few bucks and she said that's fine, but she said I had to pay 75 cents to activate the game so I did. I had been watching her stink it up and I was decent enough that I thought I could beat her and win some money. So I put $2 on the line and I broke and didn't knock anything in. She steps up and immediately starts sinking balls in one after another, I think she missed one shot the whole game and I couldn't take advantage of it and she finished me off. I was in utter shock at her skills, and I was young but I knew immediately that she had hustled me, so there was nothing I could do but give her my money, crawl out of the arcade with my tail between my legs and a lousy 25 cents to my name, and wait for my parents to pick me up and take me home. Yes, I was hustled at pool by a woman in front of everyone, something no one should have to experience!
Aka "Minnesota Fats," legendary pool hustler.
I may have mentioned this before. My Dad owned a pool hall in Connecticut for a few years, before we moved to Philly. Very nice high class joint, served good food, etc. I was too young to play pool back then, but I used to love going in there on Saturdays and play the pinball machines. Free pinball - couldn't get enough. We'd open up and many times I'd find some coins on the floor. I gobbled that up quickly, crawled under the tables to get it when necessary. 😊
I had no idea who they were, but was told it was a favorite hangout of a number of the New York Giants football players. Dam they looked so big. No adults that size in my neighborhood. 😆
Another legend, probably the greatest straight pool player in history, made 526 consecutive balls without a miss during a straight pool exhibition in Springfield, Ohio on March 19–20, 1954, a record that stood for 60 + years if I'm not mistaken. This is Mosconi showing Paul Newman some tips for his role as "Fast" Eddie Felson in the movie "The Hustler."
Of course "The Hustler" was an epic film, and in 1986 it's sequel "The Color of Money" was made, which portrayed "Fast" Eddie Felson years later as he discovered a young cocky pool hustler, much like his younger self, and took him under his wing. Love this scene.
this is the most gut-wrenching two dollar and seventy-five cent story i have ever read
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
I've read that Newman while learning how to hold and stroke a cue stick as the pic shows for The Hustler, Newman performed none of the close up shots for the movie. Those was done by Jackie Gleason who knew how to play the game.
Perhaps by the time Color of Money came out, Newman did learn how to play, and performed at least some of his own shots - not sure one way or the other.
Both were excellent movies.
Good thing DD didn't lose $27.50 - That story would have been ten times more traumatic. 😉
Ooh, we got trouble!
i can't argue with that arithmetic. but the heart-rending nature of that story would max out if the hustler turned out to be taylor swift and double d was forced to get a 'swiftie' tramp stamp on his left butt cheek
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
It was gut wrenching being hustled by a....by a....I can't do this!
>
i'll try to make ya feel better. It was probably a guy dressed as a woman for hustling purposes. 😆
For $2.75?
Yes, that's what it was, why didn't I think of that, I mean heck, I wear daisy dukes all the time. See, here's a photo of me on the way to work one morning, some young punk snapped a cell phone picture of me.
By the way, the pool player in the photo of my original post is Efren Reyes in his younger days, aka "The Magician", many people consider him to be the GOAT. Here's what he looks like today.
Thank you @doubledragon for sharing your tale of woe.
It is a classic forum story that I think is important to keep fresh in our minds. Not everyone remembered it, so I felt (no pun intended) that it was important to have you tell it again.
Your misery is an important lesson.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't think most understand what is going on here. I do because I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a masters degree in literature from an esteemed Ivy League college. There we studied the literary greats such as Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Alfred E. Neuman, etc. Well let me tell you, DD's riveting story may be the greatest written work of all time. Yes that's right, the literary GOAT, and should be recognized as such.
Well, I am no good at shooting pool, but I do love to target practice. I am pretty sure I could shoot a pool ball at 100 yards!!!
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Shot a lot of pool in my mis spent youth. Excellent hand eye coordination and math skills. Won my share of matches but mostly lost to the real greats. Actually had a bumber pool table in our basement
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
Now wait just a minute here, stevek makes a great point, we don't know, she could have really been a man disguised as a woman, I was only 16, way too young to know the difference. I was confused!
I find just having a pool table has it's benefiets..............whether you can shoot or not!
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"