What Killed Straight Pool?

At the 1973 U.S. Open, which likely dampened network TV's interest in straight pool, Luther Lassiter (above) helped stretch the first championship match to more than four hours.

This now takes us to the matter of the 1973 U.S. Open, held Aug. 7-11 in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel. The finals featured New Jersey school teacher Steve Mizerak and North Carolina hustler Luther "Wimpy" Lassiter. The tournament was double-elimination, with each game played to 150.

Mizerak and Lassiter then would have been considered two of the finest pool players in the nation: Mizerak had won the three previous U.S. Opens and during one event - in 1970 - ran over Lassiter in the finals. But Lassiter had won every tournament there was to win during the 1960s and was the most recent U.S. Open champ before Mizerak began his reign.

So the tournament held great dramatic promise. Unfortunately, that promise went unfulfilled. As Matt Racki III noted in an August 1973 edition of National Bowlers Journal and Billiard Revue: "It wasn't the most exciting U.S. Open on the books. In fact, play was pretty sloppy at times, especially during matches you would least expect. And when ABC-TV cameras were switched off, there weren't any surprises as winners stepped forward to receive their checks."

Since the tournament was double-elimination, and since Lassiter had come up from the one-loss bracket, he needed to beat Mizerak twice to take the title. The North Carolinian managed the first victory - but it took forever and even bored the live audience. According to an Aug. 12 report in The New York Times, "Mizerak, unbeaten in the double-elimination tourney, lost a marathon match that started last night and lasted more than 4 hours, 150-110, in 22 innings." Racki, of the Billiard Revue, said Mizerak played that first game against Lassiter "like his cue had been in a deep freeze for a few years."

And then Lassiter and Mizerak played the rematch, and it wasn't much better. Again, according to Racki: "Mizerak lost the lag again, had to break and after four innings, had another 18-0 lead. It should have been more, though, Steve missed an easy cut on the one-ball into the corner pocket. For the next hour or so, he and Lassiter kept trying to hand the title to one another, both blowing easy (for them) break shots, bank shots and scratching when they shouldn't."

Now, here's the problem: ABC was on hand, recording the events for its "Wide World of Sports" program. And because Mizerak could have taken the title during either match, the network had to film both. Mizerak said, "It just took too long to film." Pool historian Charles Ursitti also recalls a long stretch of safety play made for wretched television.

In fact, Ursitti conjectures that the 1973 U.S. Open dampened network TV's enthusiasm for straight pool - and even pool in general. Ursitti later helped promote the popular Fats-Mosconi challenges that I wrote about in the June issue of BD, but those came a few years afterwards.

"They used to televise the U.S. Open on ABC for years," recalls Ursitti. "For years, it was straight pool and only straight pool. For the die-hard fan, that's what you want to see. But it can get boring, and in 1973, they got into about 18 minutes of safety play. And of course, 18 minutes of playing safe is extremely hard to edit. What people want to see is offense. They want to see a lot of downtown shots. And so [the networks] abandoned it. CBS and ABC said, 'That's that. We're done.'"

Also, at about that time, the BCA itself came under assault from a competing organization, the Professional Pool Players Association. In response, the BCA - which was already losing money on the straight pool U.S. Opens - for the most part suspended them after 1977. But then faced with dwindling interest among players and fans, the PPPA and other competing organizations also stopped sponsoring straight-pool events. They moved instead to 9-ball.

If one had to place a time of death of straight pool, then that would be it - when even the other groups stopped holding the tournaments, says John Lewis, former league and program director for the Billiard Congress of America.

"The 1974 [tournament] was the last good [BCA] straight pool tournament," says Lewis. "The last four [during the 1970s] were OK, but they were weakly attended. And there wasn't a whole lot of prize money, and so it lost its luster. … And then the PPPA, in 1983, quit having the events. When the PPPA quit, that was the death of straight pool."

There's some evidence that the networks ran straight-pool events after the 1973 U.S. Open. For instance, I find a TV listing of one tournament in 1974; Allen Hopkins also tells me that the PPPA had TV coverage for some of its events. But for the most part, straight pool's TV days were over. And while the BCA intermittently sponsored straight pool U.S. Opens through the years (the last came in 2000, and was won by Ralf Souquet and Allison Fisher) it never returned to the game in a big way. Instead, the BCA moved in 1977 to amateur 8-ball tournaments - again, a format that made sense because of the popularity of coin-operated bar tables.

Previous Page Page 5 Next Page >

Top

Since 1978, Billiards Digest magazine has been the pool world’s best source for news, tournament coverage, player profiles, bold editorials, and advice on how to play pool. Our instructors include superstars Nick Varner and Jeanette Lee. Every issue features the pool accessories and equipment you love — pool cues, pool tables, instruction aids and more. Columnists Mike Shamos and R.A. Dyer examine legends like Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, and dig deep into the histories of pool games like 8-ball, 9-ball and straight pool.

Copyright © 1997-2003 Billiards Digest, All Rights Reserved
LUBY PUBLISHING INC.
122 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1506, Chicago IL 60603
Phone: 312-341-1110
Fax: 312-341-1469
Legal Disclaimer