Straight Pool

"The Hustler" was released in 1961, starring Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott, and The Great One, Jackie Gleason, playing Minnesota Fats. What ensued in this country, and possibly much of the world, was a rediscovered craze for pool, or more technically, "pocket billiards." Playing pool had become popular again, though the atmosphere of the pool hall and its connection with organized crime, unsavory types, and gambling, ranked it only one notch above the race track as a place you wouldn't want your child to be hanging out in.

By the mid-1960s I was hanging out in such a place, but the poolroom was on the premises of a bowling alley, and bowling was a more socially palatable sport and entertainment. A local crime family had a hand in the business (see "Unwitting Runners" M.H. February, 2011) and they usually allowed my friends and I to shoot pool when the tables weren't occupied even though we were under age. You had to be 18 to step inside the poolroom, and during business hours the management normally enforced the rule in one of two ways: Either you watched any games while standing behind a 4-foot cinder block wall that separated the poolroom from the bowling alley, or if you'd been paying you could continue to play until an 18 or older adult needed to use a table. Then you had to stop playing and cede your table to the grown-up.

If you were playing straight pool, the objective, as in "The Hustler" was to run out the rack, and the next rack, and so on until you missed a shot. I think that when playing alone, practicing, I'd gotten well into a second rack before missing (maybe 20 shots in a row). However, when playing an opponent, my high run was 13. 

On the rack end of the table there were notched plastic counters for keeping score. Bills of various denominations were stacked on some of the tables, and if management got wind of a pending, or "surprise" inspection, any money in sight had to be immediately removed. Nine ball was a money game and not easy to play. You had to play each ball 1-9 in sequence and bet on each ball, usually starting with a modest amount on the One ball and then doubling for each ball with winner taking all on the Nine.  

Not infrequently I watched the best young (though older than me) players run up to 100 or more shots in some of the games. Guys wearing Guinea-Ts, or wife beaters, with slicked down hair and goatees, and sharp creased pants from Robert Hall, and socks and sandals. Guys who carried their cues in long shellacked cases, and then carefully removed the cue from the case's velvet lining, and screwed the cue together and chalked it with an air of ritual to impress their opponent or challenger. The sounds were hypnotic: the swift pock of a corner shot, the graceful kiss of a side pocket shot, the crack of an exploding break shot or a defensive break of the pack to leave your opponent with no shots, the clack of the cue ball moving backwards in draw (hitting low), freezing in connect (hitting in the middle), following when hit high, which was all about table position for the next shot. There were mazze' shots, and bank shots, and geometrically precise double bank shots, and combination shots. And you needed strategy to leave your opponent with little or nothing if you thought you were going to miss. 

Although the younger late-teens/early twenties players were impressive, I was largely fascinated by two accomplished older players, in their 60s, whose close games against one another reminded me of billiards tournaments. The first gentleman was Italian-American, overweight, and mostly bald. He usually smoked a cigar during a game. His rival was a fastidiously dressed  Anglo-German, also balding, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and wing-tip shoes. It was fascinating to watch them play, not simply because they were incredibly good, but more so for the aura of infinite patience and respect they showed for the game and each other. These two hardly spoke while playing, maybe an occasional sentence or a few words. They were gentlemen to a fault but also possessed a Zen-like quality in their play. Sometimes, when one of them failed to show, the other would play alone or go up against one of the young hustlers. Sometimes they would lose to a younger player, but they never let the loss bother them. And though it hadn't made for great drama, like Newman versus Gleason, the younger players, win or lose, always treated the older men with deference and respect.

Later, in the 1970s, I mostly played pool in bars or taverns--- the game always 8-ball, never straight pool, because other people wanted to use your table (you couldn't play unless you put a quarter in). It didn't matter a great deal if I was good anymore: 8-ball was a game of luck as much as skill, except for the final 8-ball shot in which you needed to call your pocket. In this stage of my life, pool had become entertainment on your night or two, or three out, and there wasn't anything wrong with that---aided by a pitcher of beer, ones' shooting sometimes improved. But I missed the older pool room, frequented in my teens, and the dedication and gravitas of those inspired players, young and old. . . .

By the '80's I'd taken up darts. . . .