Three Days in Havana

What started as a promising return home, De Oro's Cuban weekend left him forlorn.

But while the Havana championship was over, the story for De Oro, sadly, was not. That he finally managed to eke out a victory after such a dramatic collapse had set tongues wagging in Havana. Then came the AP dispatch. The reporter (who apparently had not been in attendance on the final night) speculated that Otis had intentionally selected the incorrect final shot so as not to embarrass De Oro before his countrymen. The dispatch was presumably read by millions of sports fans worldwide.

Otis, a longtime friend of De Oro's, insisted afterwards that nothing was further from the truth. He said the supposedly "correct" five-rail shot cited by the AP was so difficult that he had offered fans in Havana 20-1 odds that it could not be made. "I consider it an injustice to a man who succeeded in overcoming a lead of 23 points on the final night of play to be charged with giving up the winning points," he declared to one reporter.

But the story gained currency - especially in Havana, where fans had noted that the two competitors were obviously on quite friendly terms. Some thought too friendly, with fans in Havana whispering that the Cuban champion might actually have joined forces with his opponent. And it was this judgment, finally, that broke the old Cuban's heart. "There was a great sadness in his look," wrote one newspaper man, who had interviewed De Oro during his final day in Cuba. He said the old champion felt as if his countrymen had judged him unfairly.

"I have been playing professionally for 25 years and my conduct in billiards has always been honorable," De Oro told El Mundo. "In New York, I have wealthy friends who play at my side without any sort of reserve or fear (that I might cheat them). I understand that it was incorrect of me to come with Otis, to stay in the same hotel with him as a friend, even though we were going to battle for the championship. But I believed that my reputation of integrity would have been enough to put me above suspicion."

A dejected De Oro even turned the question directly on his interviewer, asking somewhat desperately whether he too shared the public's low opinion of him. It's unclear how the reporter responded. But among De Oro's last recorded words in Havana were these: "If I go very sad from my country, it's because I love it so."

R.A. Dyer is the author of "The Hustler & The Champ" and "Hustler Days." Find his pool history blog at untoldstoriesbilliardshistory.blogspot.com

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