HomeAbout Billiards DigestContact UsArchiveAll About PoolEquipmentOur AdvertisersLinks
Tips & shafts
By George Fels
Consulting Editor George Fels has been writing for Billiards Digest since 1980, and his "Tips & Shafts" column is usually our readers' first stop when they crack open the magazine. For better or worse, pool has been his only mistress for 40-plus years.


Archives
• October 2024
• September 2024
• August 2024
• July 2024
• June 2024
• May 2024
• April 2024
• March 2024
• February 2024
• January 2024
• December 2023
• November 2023
• October 2023
• September 2023
• August 2023
• July 2023
• June 2023
• May 2023
• April 2023
• March 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023
• December 2022
• November 2022
• October 2022
• September 2022
• August 2022
• July 2022
• June 2022
• May 2022
• April 2022
• March 2022
• February 2022
• January 2022
• December 2021
• November 2021
• October 2021
• September 2021
• August 2021
• July 2021
• June 2021
• May 2021
• April 2021
• March 2021
• February 2021
• January 2021
• December 2020
• November 2020
• October 2020
• September 2020
• August 2020
• June 2020
• April 2020
• March 2020
• February 2020
• January 2020
• December 2019
• November 2019
• October 2019
• September 2019
• August 2019
• July 2019
• June 2019
• May 2019
• April 2019
• March 2019
• February 2019
• January 2019
• December 2018
• November 2018
• October 2018
• September 2018
• July 2018
• July 2018
• June 2018
• May 2018
• April 2018
• March 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• November 2017
• October 2017
• September 2017
• August 2017
• July 2017
• June 2017
• May 2017
• April 2017
• March 2017
• February 2017
• January 2017
• December 2016
• November 2016
• October 2016
• September 2016
• August 2016
• July 2016
• June 2016
• May 2016
• Apr 2016
• Mar 2016
• Feb 2016
• Jan 2016
• December 2015
• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• July 2015
• June 2015
• May 2015
• April 2015
• March 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• October 2014
• August 2014
• May 2014
• March 2014
• February 2014
• September 2013
• June 2013
• May 2013
• April 2013
• March 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• September 2012
• August 2012
• July 2012
• June 2012
• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• October 2011
• September 2011
• August 2011
• July 2011
• June 2011
• May 2011
• April 2011
• March 2011
• February 2011
• January 2011
• December 2010
• November 2010
• October 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010
• July 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008


Best of Fels
 
April: Odds & Ends, Mostly Odds
April 2008
Each of us is said to accumulate 30 million facts over the course of a lifetime.

As the star of his California high-school golf team, John Schmidt actually went head-to-head with a promising young contemporary named Tiger Woods. (You needn't ask how he did.)

As the star of his Missouri high-school cross-country running team, Danny Harriman was national-class.

Nick Varner's college classmates at Purdue included basketball icon Rick Mount and, closer to home, pool trick-shot star Paul Gerni.

Pool instructor nonpareil Fran Crimi was one year behind Jerry Seinfeld in college (Queens College, N.Y.), not that there's anything wrong with that. Torturing the same metaphor a step further, she has also given pool lessons to ex-baseball great Keith Hernandez. Whether or not he subsequently asked her to help him move is unclear.

Crimi played the accordion when younger. Not only did she master the requisite "Malaguena," "Lady of Spain," and "Tico Tico," but she spent extensive time interpreting the wistful '70s ballad, "I've Got A Brand-New Pair of Roller Skates," and its elusive francato tempo.

The most talented pool player/musician, however, has to be the late Gene Nagy. Not only did he study at New York's fabled Julliard School of Music for about a year, but he was poised to become lead trumpet in that school's symphony orchestra when pool came calling.

The only college degree-holder really active in American men's pro pool today is Max Eberle (James Madison). With the Seniors' Tour having lapsed, Dick Lane (Oklahoma University) doesn't have a lot of competing to do. And Washington State's Dan Louie, like Eberle a former intercollegiate champion, can only play a few events a year because of health problems. (He scared his friends by swooning at the 2007 U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship.)

Tiffany Nelson holds a black belt in the martial art of tae kwon do; Kelly Fisher has the equivalent in kung fu. The most accomplished male players along similar lines are probably Tony Annigoni (aikido) and C. J. Wiley, who studies an obscure art with a private instructor.

Dan's Fantastic Fours: The venerable player/analyst Dan DiLiberto has won prestigious titles in all four of pool's major disciplines. So have several others, of course - but not in part of four different decades, as Dan did. Nobody else ever has. Dan has also fathered children in parts of four different decades, and is one of those rara avises who have played four sports professionally (pool, bowling, baseball at the AA minor-league level, and 12 wins, 2 draws, and 0 losses as a 135-lb. boxer named, for no real reason, Kid Torrance). It was only a case of the dreaded "glass hands" - he broke them twice, and risked losing use of them - that shut down his fighting career.

DiLiberto is not the only pool player to flirt with major-league baseball. Noted hustler "Brooklyn Jimmy" Cassas, discovered playing ball in the Navy, went to AA ball as a strong-armed pitcher. Jack "Jersey Red" Breit was drafted out of a Police Athletic League by the New York Yankees, and went all the way to AAA before getting hurt. Legendary manager Leo Durocher played some tournament pool as a young man; so did the Dodgers' Walter Alston. But none can top Johnny Kling, our 1909 world continuous-pool champion (no, smart-mouths, I wasn't there to see him win). Not only is the great and extremely rare Brunswick table model named for him, but he was the starting catcher in that same era for the very last world-championship team the Chicago Cubs ever fielded. In the modern era, pitchers Dean Chance (who was actually a buddy of the legendary Don Willis) and the late "Bo" Belinsky got far more ink for their pool interests than either man deserved; neither could run a rack.

Hall of Famer Dallas West is one of 15 children. He credits his parents' prolific tendencies for his being able to quit school early and play pool full-time. "They really lost track of where the hell I was," he says.

Talk about naturals: The first time Allen Hopkins ever touched a cue, or so he attests, he ran 12. Old-timer Joe Bachel did Hopkins one better, running the entire table on his very first try and subsequently getting in a fight with his buddies, who thought he was hustling them. (Gee, I wonder why.) And the late Al "New York Blackie" Bonife, one of the finest 9-ballers New York ever produced, didn't even start playing until his early twenties!

Eat Your Heart Out Dept.: Cuemaker Bill Stroud once quit pool for two years - mainly so he could teach skiing - yet was back in stroke, by his own account, within five hours. The late Johnny Ervolino took several such leaves, but, largely owing to his extremely compact stroke, regained top form even more quickly than Stroud. The all-time comeback story goes to the late Joe Balsis, who went on a 17-year hiatus to work for his father-in-law - then returned to become a world champion within two.

Dumbest Single Thing I Ever Heard Around Pool Dept.: You may have a story to top this, but at least you'll have had a decent run for your dough. A local single-mom player, who shall remain nameless (although that's far better than she deserves), used to leave her two small daughters with their grandmother for up to six months a year - so she could run off to Arizona, where she somehow existed as a bar-pool groupie of sorts. Her rationale? "I really just can't deal with being cold." Ignoring for the moment the parental aspects of her lifestyle, I once attempted to point out that one of her favorite players was a human slug whose IQ could very likely be measured in single digits. "I know," she sighed, "but he sure can play that bar-box 8-ball." At which point I gave up.

MORE VIDEO...