Let's get him a matchup with John Burkett.

The Phillies #1 starter, Brett Myers

Cole Hamels says "spare me."

I guess if this pitching this doesn’t work out for Myers, he has a pretty good shot at making the PBA tour.

Or he could join a women's extreme fighting circuit.

Brett Myers' wife says "spare me."

Edit: spelling

man, not one, but TWO people beat me here to make a spousal abuse joke

you guys are good

Won't bowling potentially hurt their wrists?

Those ninth frame pins are in for such a beating.

279? Pfft.

I'll take Repoz over Myers or even Jesus Quintana. I've been struggling with a bowling-related wrist injury for a couple months, seriously. With the house shots laid out the way they are today, high-level leagues have guys bowling 300 about every week. These are not the oil conditions they would see on the PBA Tour, which would eat them alive.

These are not the oil conditions they would see on the PBA Tour, which would eat them alive.

There was a PBA Experience league here last year. A bunch of 220 bowlers tried it out, the high average was 185 or so. Bo Burton bowled in it, though he said they weren't that much like the pro conditions.

I practiced on them after the league a couple of time. They were definitely tough, my high was only 172.

that creep can roll

I read the headline as "Brett Myers nearly blows a perfect game". That left me confused

I read the headline as "Brett Myers nearly blows a perfect game". That left me confused

Sounds like a headline we'd hear if A-Rod were a pitcher.

I thought the pro lanes were slicked up to help them score....huh.

I thought the pro lanes were slicked up to help them score....huh.

You want the lane slicked up in certain spots in a house shot. The oil pattern typical is like a top hat. Oil in the first few feet, then no oil on the outside of both lanes and, of course, none the last 20 feet of the lane. Pro oil patterns are purposely less uniform to make the conditions more challenging. Think of your public golf course versus a pro course.

that creep can roll

Thank you.

Brett Myers, was strutting around the clubhouse yesterday with a makeshift Heavyweight Championship belt

Not a good choice of props for Myers.

Long, long, long ago when I was 15, I bowled about a 255 or 260 in a game at Rehobeth beach, in one of those old style rattyassed places that didn't even have automatic pinsetters. Soon after that, they closed the last inner city DC alley and I gave the game up, but at the time I was averaging about 180.

Question: It's always been my thought that those old-fashioned alleys were MUCH easier than the modern, oil-slicked versions. Is that true? Do you really need a lot more skill to bowl a 300 game today than you used to way back when?

Okay, I've now read the thread, and I see that AJM's pretty much answered my question. It's a bit like the difference between the super tight shimmed pockets on the pool tables you have in the pro men's nine ball tournaments vs. the sloppy seconds pockets you see with the women on the WPBA tour events on ESPN.

I'll take Repoz over Myers or even Jesus Quintana.

No mo...Haven't picked up the holed-rock in years.

But I'm sure 57-year old Mark Roth...after placing a heavy Ranger hockey bet, wolfing down a few fully-fixed Paramustardy hot-dogs, unleash a squishy brown resin shiitbag in the bathroom and huff a nose twisting jar of Nu-Skin...could still kick Myers' ten-in-the-pityless ass.

Question: It's always been my thought that those old-fashioned alleys were MUCH easier than the modern, oil-slicked versions. Is that true? Do you really need a lot more skill to bowl a 300 game today than you used to way back when?

Twenty or thirty years ago if you had a 300 bowled by an amateur in a league, the lane had to be shut down after the league and the USBC would send lane inspectors out in the next day or two looking for anything they could find to disallow the game. I bet half the 300 games bowled in leagues back then (and it wasn't very many) were disallowed.

It's not so much that the lanes are easier, it's that they are oiled precisely by machine so the same shot is always there. The synthetic lanes don't soak oil like the old wood lanes (which would do that unevenly). The other major factor working for today's bowlers is the modern ball, which pretty much hooks for you. The bird-brained 20-somethings still want to crank it up with Roth-like revs, but that's not even the way to win in leagues. And if you bowl like that on Tour you better be accurate to within an inch or so in either direction. There are about five guys in the world who can be with that plant-your-foot-and-rip-it approach.

Salfino,

So all in all, how would a 200 game on a wooden alley that was oiled only periodically (and might have been right next to a radiator) roughly translate into a modern regular lane and a modern pro tour lane? (I didn't even know until now that they don't still use wooden lanes. When did they switch? And do they look any different?)

First 200 game I ever bowled was when I was 12, and it was on the end lane of an upstairs inner city alley that WAS sitting right next to a radiator. IIRC you aimed your ball straight at the gap between the 6 and the 10 (no hook necessary) and the lane did the rest. Cheap thrill at 25 cents a game--or "line", as they used to call it.

Scores are a lot higher today than they were back on the old wooden alleys. For example:

I've had 2 300 games. My first one was in 1986, and I was the only person in the entire house for the entire season to have one. I was averaging 205, which was the 4th or 5th best average that season for the entire association.

My second one was in 2005. I averaged 212 that season. There were 41 300 games....in the league I was in (yes, it was a very high-average league). I don't know exactly where 212 ranked for average, but when they listed the top 25 averages for the year, I wasn't on the list.

The technology has outpaced ability.

I'm a once a week bowler, and only okay - usually a 160-170 average. My "bowling center" remodeled a couple of years ago and went from wood to synthetic. Remembering the wood, the synthetic is definitely much more consistent. Things can change some over the course of a night, but the shots work exactly the same from week to week. With wood you never knew what you were going to get.

Interesting how things are working this year. There's a group of guys who don't take it very seriously at all. Some throw it hard - not hard and crank it, but just hard and straight like some young guys do. They are running away with the league this year. The conditions are very kind strike-wise to anyone who throws hard like that with hardly any hook. The big hookers are doing okay, and the guys like me with a moderate hook are struggling a lot.

It's funny that in my league there is a 300 game about every week. Sometimes more than one. I'd say there have been 25 or 30 bowled. Average average is about 193 or so. High average is 228 with about 10 guys over 220. We don't even know if someone is in the 10th frame on a 300 game unless they're bowling right next to us. We give the guy the lane. But back in the day, the entire place used to stop and everyone would gather around. The only thing you'd hear is the ball return motors.

As for wood, it's not that they were harder to bowl on. But league conditions were tougher because of the degree to which the lanes varied. Also, no one complained. Now if a shot isn't there a few weeks straight for the top bowlers in a particular house, they run up like little babies and complain to the owner, who almost always responds with a new, easier shot. People don't want to bowl anymore. They want to score. I like going to the lanes after the FDU women's team practices on that NCAA Slop Shot, which is literally a swamp of oil from gutter to gutter. If you miss your mark by a board, you miss your pin -- no exceptions.

Great to see people interested in bowling. About 30 years ago, a tourney winner would get a check for about $40 K. The average salary then was probably half that. Now they get a check for $25 K most weeks if they're lucky and good enough to win. But these guys are real athletes, IMO. At least as much as golfers. I'm trying to work with the PBA on some content that will convey to people just how hard it is to be a top pro.

I'll be perfectly honest I've never bowled a 279, I for some weird reason have 4 277, one 290(this season, which is hilarious because my rotator cuff is completly and utterly screwed and I did it the first week of the season while 'establishing' average) and one 300, but for some unfathomable reason I have never been able to bowl a 279.

Question: It's always been my thought that those old-fashioned alleys were MUCH easier than the modern, oil-slicked versions. Is that true? Do you really need a lot more skill to bowl a 300 game today than you used to way back when?

short answer No, long answer Hell no. it's so much easier to bowl a 300 now than any time in the past that bowling one is nice, but nobody honest with themselves nowadays would compare themselves in skill with a person in the past. Bowling now is more or less a joke to carry a 200+ average.

In 1980 my dad bowled on the travelling league in St Louis, carrying barely a 200 average and was considered one of the best bowlers in the city, nowadays everyone carries a 200 average. not kidding. Today's game you don't even need to know how to bowl, just how to crank and speed.

for some unfathomable reason I have never been able to bowl a 279.

I have no games in the 270's. 299, 288, then 269.

299

Ouch.

When I used to work at a bowling (ghostly Castle Lanes)...there was nothing better than "doing the lanes" and dragging the huge buffing machine from hell around. (and when you found out what lanes the team that was leading the league or some general dickweed persona that you hated was rolling on...you dragged oil all over the place and left that lane with shitto conditions)

BTW...After hours we used to bowl overhand for cash...until one guy clipped a sprinkler on the ceiling and we all split the indoor rainstorm as the town rigs were coming.

Repoz...what city are you in?

I bowled juniors at a Castle Lanes in SF many, many, many years ago.

299

Ouch.

Ouch indeed. I had two of those in a 3 week period in 2006.

I bowled juniors at a Castle Lanes in SF many, many, many years ago.

No, these Castle Lanes were in Jersey.

It now houses a lawyers group...so at least it has remained a "rigged house"

My high string in candlepin is 180. I did it twice. I'm not sure what my high ten pin score is. Probably 150 or so.

I used to work at a house in Cambridge called "Lanes and Games", on Rte 2 down by Alewife. It had candlepin and ten pin lanes. I used to hook up that machine that oiled the ten pin lanes. I'd set it in the gutters at the foul line, push the button and watch it oil the first 30 feet of the lane, and watch it return to me. Repeat until all lanes oiled.

The candlepin lanes were only dusted with mop. Candlepin balls don't grab the lane. They slide down the length of the alley. My ball had a back-up spin on it, so it would start out right to left but break back to the right near the pins. Most decent candlepin bowlers throw it harder that ten pin bowlers.

Question: It's always been my thought that those old-fashioned alleys were MUCH easier than the modern, oil-slicked versions. Is that true? Do you really need a lot more skill to bowl a 300 game today than you used to way back when?

short answer No, long answer Hell no. it's so much easier to bowl a 300 now than any time in the past that bowling one is nice, but nobody honest with themselves nowadays would compare themselves in skill with a person in the past. Bowling now is more or less a joke to carry a 200+ average.

I honestly didn't realize that. Sounds a lot like today's SATs.

Great to see people interested in bowling. About 30 years ago, a tourney winner would get a check for about $40 K. The average salary then was probably half that. Now they get a check for $25 K most weeks if they're lucky and good enough to win. But these guys are real athletes, IMO. At least as much as golfers. I'm trying to work with the PBA on some content that will convey to people just how hard it is to be a top pro.

Salfino, if you ever have any luck with that, I wish you'd lend your talent to promoting pool. That's a sport that takes nearly incomprehensible skill and stamina to play on the professional level, and yet in 2007 exactly three players in the entire world earned over $100,000---for the entire year. A guy I know plays in every pro tournament and regional tournament he can find, travels around the world to play, was ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. and 33rd in the world in a poll conducted among players, and in 2007 finished in the money in over 30 tournaments.

His total winnings for the year were $36,700. Maybe I should tell him to take up bowling.

I love candlepin bowling, and duckpins as well. I suck at both, but would happily give up 10-pin bowling to do either on a regualr basis.

Unfortunately, the nearest places are more than 1000 mile away.

And for those that don't know, 180 in candlepins is a huge score. I'd say it's harder to throw 180 in candlepins than 280 in tenpin.

Thank you for that kind remark, p8p.

Yeah, the planets and stars were in the proper alignment those occasions.

I averaged 110-112 most of my "career". One year I averaged 116 and bowled in the "open" class in the MA state tournament. The singles event was a 10 stringer, and I started slow, but bowled a 450 my last 3 strings to finish at 1193. There were 2 to a lane in that event, and the guy I bowled with was an long time pro from Maine named Al Gallant. I was 22 or so, he was 60 something. After 9 strings, he was at 1200, and in the hunt for first. He tired and bowled a 101 for a 1301, which got him somewhere in the top 20. I was way back, near the bottom.

There were several dozen spectators that day, and during the last couple strings, we had about 30 people watching us. I'm sure some of them were there for Al. I brought no one, but they cheered for me the last couple strings as well as for him. I remember being embarrassed by the attention.

I stopped bowling when we bought our house in 1997. I'd bowled for about 20 years, and at that point decided I'd rather be at home with my wife than at the alleys. Last year, I came out of retirement and bowled the last half of the season (Jan to May). I set a goal to average 108 by the end of the year. I only got to 100. I had really good night...a 369. After that night I thought 330's would come easy. The next week I bowled a 289 or something like that, and then I knew it wasn't gonna come back.

The funny thing is that I felt physically stronger last year than I did 10 years ago. So much so that I was overthrowing and couldn't keep the ball on the alley. In warm-ups, everything I threw hard went way left. So I had to throw at half speed to keep it around the head pin. But I wasn't as consistent as I was ten years ago, and it didn't seem like I was gonna ever be that good again, so at the end of the year I was leaning towards quitting again, and I did.

One more highlight: One string I had eleven marks (spares or strikes). A had a strike in the 10th box (frame), punched out the half Worcester left (the 2 pin and the 8 pin,leaving the other 8 standing). Then, I converted that for the spare on strike, for a 178 string.

Extra credit question: What's the derivation of the term "half-Worcester"?

Up in the Northeast it's almost all candlepin. For those who grew up on candlepin, there is a bit of "snobbery" about our version of the game. More precise, more sport-like, more strategy. In 10-pin, you just go up there & heave this giant ball, and more often than not all the pins go crashing down. Yawn. In candlepin you play the deadwood, get 3 balls per frame, and you're lucky to get one strike per string.

In candlepin, 100 is a good score, 140 is outstanding, and I've never seen a 180 and we have some good leagues up here.

I bowled in a league where my 112 average was right in the middle of the pack. I was 40th high in a league of 80 bowlers. On the south shore of Boston, the league was a who's who of local pros. It was a lot of fun. Thursday nights at 9pm, sixteen 5 man teams. A money league, both nightly and cumulatively. And lots of side action.

Tons of laughs. Good times.

That's a sport that takes nearly incomprehensible skill and stamina to play on the professional level, and yet in 2007 exactly three players in the entire world earned over $100,000---for the entire year. A guy I know plays in every pro tournament and regional tournament he can find, travels around the world to play.

I don't think pool's lack of popularity as a spectator event revolves around people thinking it's easy. There are a lot of things that are really hard to do but boring to watch--millions of people feel this way about baseball, for example. On the other hand, televised poker seems to be finding an audience, so maybe there is hope for billiards.

Up in the Northeast it's almost all candlepin.

Er, up in the northeast of where, now?

I bowled in a league in jr. high. It has been awhile since I bowled, and I've always loved it, but (GET OFF MY LAWN) it has gotten so damned expensive now. When I was in Portland in the 90's we played every week on the $1-a-game nights, which was a favorite for the various broke stoners and hipsters. I realize that was special, but even on the NON-stoner nights it wasn't all that much more. In the NYC now, it's about $10 a game. ACK! Granted, that is the "HIP" manhattan places, it may be less out in the recesses of Queens or SI.

Can someone give me an idea of what a weekday night game costs in a less-populated area? I'm curious what the average is these days.

As far as pool, what's your game, Andy? I'm in a straight-pool league, and I'm thinking of finding a snooker league to play in. That is one hard game, but a great combination of a lot of skills that cut across many of the standard smaller-table games.

The dumpy POS alley near me in San Jose costs $3.25/ game on weeknights after 9pm. Otherwise it's $5.25 earlier in the evening and $6.50 on weekend nights.

But that was nearly a year ago.

Robin, the truth is that pool's like a lot of the better things in life, in that you actually have to put some effort into understanding its subtleties in order to truly enjoy it. And to play it well, you almost have to either practice or play high level competition for several hours every single day of your life, beginning at about the age of 12. Needless to say, that doesn't make for a large group of either spectators or non-casual players.

And you're right, it often provokes the same sort of "BO-RING" comments that baseball does, for just that reason. OTOH you can compete against some of the best players in the world in regional tournaments for an entry fee of $65.00. And you can get a seat in the front row (about eight feet from the table) for the entire week of the U.S. Nine Ball Open for considerably less than a box seat behind the plate for a frozen night game between the Nats and the Marlins. So perhaps there's something to be said for a lack of popularity---for the live spectator, baseball itself was a vastly better dollar value a couple of generations ago than it is today. Not even close.

Up in the Northeast it's almost all candlepin.

Same as it ever was. Forty years ago, when I was an undergrad in the Boston area, Stasia Czernicki ruled the lanes and the Saturday afternoon airwaves. Just looked her up now on Wikipedia; sad to see that she's been dead for quite a while.

As far as pool, what's your game, Andy? I'm in a straight-pool league, and I'm thinking of finding a snooker league to play in. That is one hard game, but a great combination of a lot of skills that cut across many of the standard smaller-table games.

I play only nine ball---I absolutely loathe eight ball---but if they had snooker tables around here and some decent gambling action or tournaments, I'd love to play that game again, because of the big tables, small pockets, and the required skill sets. (The two best women nine ball players in the world both grew up playing snooker in England and Ireland.) They used to have a snooker table in every pool room in North Carolina when I was at Duke in the 60's, and I loved the game.

I remember once going to Toronto on vacation in 1975, and wandering over to the pool room nearest to my downtown hotel. It was a walk-up that was almost invisible from the street, but when I got up there I discovered a jam-packed room (and on a Tuesday afternoon, no less) with about fifty 6' x 12' snooker tables, all in perfect condition. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, until I found out that in that entire pool room, not one person wanted to play for more than two dollars a game. But I'd still love to see a place like that here in the DC area.

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, until I found out that in that entire pool room, not one person wanted to play for more than two dollars a game.

Maybe you can teach Pete Rose some snooker. ;-)

Something about 9-ball (which at varying times I've played quite a bit of) doesn't always stick with me. Too quick. I get the feeling, however, that if there were more than 2 snooker tables in all of Manhattan I'd abandon straight pool for it.

When I win the lottery, my first purchases will be a Bösendorfer grand and a snooker table. Er, after I find the apartment these items would fit in.

Don't know how old you are, Lassus, but do you remember a pool hall on the west side of 8th Avenue, just north of 44th St., called McGirr's? It closed down in the late 80's. That was the best place I've ever been in for a combination of variety of tables, pocket tightness, levels of competition and atmosphere. They had lots of regulation 9-footers, but they also had several 10-foot pool tables, quite a few billiards tables, and about half a dozen 12-foot snooker tables, with pockets so tight that you could barely fit a ball into them. They also had every road player on Earth go through there, God knows how many Times Square strays wandering in and out, and I'm pretty sure that it was open for something like 18 hours a day. That was when New York was really New York.

Won't bowling potentially hurt their wrists?

The Phillies aren't worried about it. I volunteer with an organization that the team sponsors, and for a few years we've had a bowling fundraising event where several players participate. Usually more position players, but among pitchers I know at least Randy Wolf has rolled.

Edit: the event is in-season, btw.

You've got some years on me, Andy, I was first living in the city in '93, when Times Square was still disturbing but your place was probably long gone. A few of the halls I played in then - notably one at 25th and 8th - are now gone.

But, I was playing pool in a place called "Mr. Reds" in Utica in the 80's. It may not have been NY, but Utica was no picnic either. Mr. Reds had bullet holes in the walls and a sign that stated in absolute seriousness: "DO NOT SIT ON HEAT DUCKS".

Ouch indeed. I had two of those in a 3 week period in 2006.

The Dave Stieb of bowling.

Best Regards

John

Ouch.

No kidding. Though I'd be more pissed if I actually threw a good shot on the last ball.

I did throw good balls on the last shot...a 10-pin the first time and a, yeah....pocket 8 pin on the second one.

And for all the years I bowled, I've never had a wrist injury.

I left a 10 pin, but I'm lefty and I hit very high. I was lucky to get nine.

I'm always hurting something. I've hurt my wrist, my knee, and I haven't bowled since May because of my elbow.

Brett Myers nearly bowls a perfect game...

...with some woman's severed head?

play only nine ball---I absolutely loathe eight ball

in the military, the only thing we ever played was eight ball, and I despised nine ball thinking it was slop only, hooked up with a girl who's dad owned a pool hall and I saw some good nine ball playing that made me respect it, years later I'm at a ball and all of these guys were playing nine ball and I saw some of the most amazing shooting imagineable and I learned to appreciate that game much better, the whole concept of not calling a shot will still always bother me, but at the upper levels nine ball players are pretty good.

as to watching it on tv, sorry the best players rarely play, and outside of two women, I've never seen a wommen on tv that could beat me consistently at pool...and I personally know several women that can beat me consistently, but the girls on tv just suck. (except the asian girl and one other one) the guys on the other hand are good, but I've seen 3 times more female pool aired on tv than quality pool.

Cardsfanboy, we've got to match up for some cheap sets if you're ever in DC, because you sound like you've got a hell of a game. It's true that Allison and Karen more or less dominate the women's tour, but there are still a good half dozen women below them who can hold their own against just about any man below the top 50 or 100 in the world. I'm sure I could beat every one of those women a certain percentage of the time, if my break were on and I got a few rolls, but the question is, "what percentage?" And in the cases of players like Jeannette Lee or Ga Young Kim, I'm not sure that percentage would be too high. I'm pretty good, but I know my limitations, and those women have beaten LOTS of men who play a lot better than I do.

You're right, though, about the lack of good TV coverage of the men, although YouTube has lots of good matches, including the entire final round of the recent World Cup. The main problem for this is that the politics of the men's tour (which isn't even a tour these days) is cannibalistic, and splintered in all different directions. The women are a lot smarter and better organized.

And I totally agree that while nine ball's by far the best game, the luck factor is annoying. But it isn't so much the lucked in balls (after the break, that rarely happens), it's the lucky snookers after a miss (which happens a LOT). Grady Matthews deals with this in his tournaments with a rule that says if you miss a shot without calling "safety" beforehand, your opponent has the option of making you shoot again. It's a great rule, but most players (I'm an exception) feel that (a) it slows down the game too much, and (b) the luck evens out in the long run. They're right, but in a hill-hill game those lucky safes can tend to really plss you off.

We used to play 9 ball before bowling...3 or 4 of us would play, and the money balls were the 3, 6 and 9...a dollar each for the 3 and 6, 2 bucks for the nine. If you scratched, you put a buck on the rail. If the 9 ball got sunk out of sequence, the player who sunk it got two bucks from everyone else, and the 9 was re-spotted. Whoever sunk the 9 when it was the last ball to go in got the rail money.

We used to play for 45 minutes to an hour before our league started. If you were hot, you could win 80 bucks. Not bad.

Best gambling game of all is a game called payball, which is played on a snooker table, with rules identical to nine ball, only using six balls, either the red through the 6 or the 2 through the 7. The payoff is X dollars on each of the first five balls, double on the 7 ball, and double the total amount on a run, which isn't so easy on a snooker table.

I once saw a payball game in Dayton that over the course of 3 or 4 days attracted all the best players in the country, who were in town for the biggest tournament of the year. At one point there were seven players in the game, playing for $50 on each of the lower balls and $100 on the 7. At one point I went for a water change and when I got back to the table less than five minutes later, a hustler named Denny Searcy from San Francisco had just broke and ran two racks. Do the math: 2 x (6 x 350 x 2) = $8400 in less than five minutes. Not bad for 1974 dollars.

I far prefer golf for money than pool for money, and I'm at pretty much at a similar well-above-average-but-definitively-far-short-of-professional grade in each game. Golf just has fewer random factors involved and makes more sense for me as a money game. Which may prove I'm simply not much of a gambler. Or does that make me an excellent gambler? ;-)

Lassus, golf and pool take about equal amounts of skill, but since it's far easier to lemon on a golf course than on a pool table, and since there are many more deep pockets hanging around country clubs than pool rooms, I'd say you've definitely made the right choice. You have to work ten times as hard to get good action in pool than you did 30 years ago. How true is that in golf?

Well, I think in golf you're more likely to make money off acquaintances than total strangers - the pool of people willing seems a lot larger in pool halls. I would imagine it's harder to find fish in golf because at most only 4 of you are going to be playing at once and if you're at a country club by yourself consistently asking for money golf without any friends around you're gonna get tagged pretty quick. And again, I'm not much of a money player in either game. I could have beat a number of the guys who wanted to play golf for money over the years but I couldn't really ever cover bets as big as they wanted to play for. On one hand, cowardly, on another hand, smart.

I sharked a couple of rich jerk kids playing 8-ball in college (Literally, a couple. One freshman year, one junior year, perhaps all the more satisfying by the lack of frequency.) at around $50-$75 each time and I've won over the last 15 years maybe $100 total in various rounds off my stepfather and his friends. I really am one of those "love of the game" guys, though, money doesn't make it more or less satisfying. It is the WINNING that's satisfying to me. Gym teacher parents. ;-)

really am one of those "love of the game" guys, though, money doesn't make it more or less satisfying. It is the WINNING that's satisfying to me.
For me, love of the game is not about winning but doing my best. Not that winning is not satisfying, but I'd play anyone for the fun of it, even if they are likely to beat me easily.
My best friend of my late teen years was strictly interested in the betting, though. He and I were an odd mix; I wrote up my eulogy for him.

Yeah, that came out kinda messed up. I want to do my best, and if I do, I feel I'll win. Maybe that's how I got there. Heh.

For me, love of the game is not about winning but doing my best.


Unless you're a true world class player, that's the only approach to the game that will keep you from going insane. Of all the hundreds of people I've known in my life who might consider themselves "pool players," there are exactly two who've made and kept serious money. One of them is a retired mailman with rare money management skills, and the other was (he died a few years ago) a child prodigy who may have been the most talented player I've ever seen, and he made his real money by parlaying his winnings into real estate that he placed in his mother's name. It's a great game with absolutely no real money in it for anyone other than maybe the top dozen or so players in the world, exactly three of them at this point (Shane, Jeannette, and Johnny Archer) being Americans.

Funny pool story relating to baseball: The White Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson used to fancy himself a pool shark, and even bragged about it in his early book, Hawk. When he played for the expansion Senators back in 1966-67 he used to come into the old Brunswick Billiards on Irving Street looking for action. He wound up losing to practically everyone he matched up with, including one guy who never ran three racks in a row in his entire life. He and Michael Jordan are the two athletes that I would've loved to get on a table. Guys like that have no idea just how tough the game really is when people shoot back at you.