By George Fels
[Reprinted from April 2006]
Almost two years ago, we published a challenge to the pool world by a free spirit from Florida. He offered to play anyone a set of sudden death 7-ball and then fight the same opponent under extreme-fighting rules (which essentially means no rules) for $20,000, winner takes all. One of the first to raise his hand in acceptance was famed pool money player Dan DiLiberto, then 70 and blind in one eye. The 36-year-old challenger begged off, citing DiLiberto’s advanced age.

The fact is, hardly anyone wants to compete with Dan at much of anything, age and vision notwithstanding, and it’s largely been that way for most of his adult life. You’ll have a better understanding of why that is from his lively new biography, “Road Player — the Danny DiLiberto Story,” produced with one of pool’s best writers, Jerry Forsyth. In truth, it’s not really a biography but a collection of anecdotes. But Danny is a great storyteller with great stories to tell.

You cannot name a single money player who has simultaneously been more outspoken and articulate throughout his career than Danny D. How many pool experts will give you a sentence like, “He had a Rambow cue which he treated as if it were blown from crystal”? In this book, Dan not only records his memoirs but comments on psychology, competition and societal mores. But the book has no real beginning, no ending whatsoever, and what’s in the middle ranges from brilliant to ho-hum. Too many retellings of, “I went there and won, then I went there and won.”

Dan DiLiberto is the only pool player — and one of the few individuals in sporting history — to have played four sports professionally. In addition to pool, he has been a pro boxer, bowler and baseball player. Obviously, the book contains plenty of pool stories, and an entire chapter on his fighting career and the “glass hands” that eventually disqualified him from that endeavor. If he doesn’t want to talk about bowling (he once threw a 300 game and ran 200 balls on the same day), that’s certainly fine with me. But why no baseball? He’s the third top money pool player that I know of who went as far as AA ball (“Brooklyn Jimmy” Cassas reached the same level, and the late Jack “Jersey Red” Breit went a notch higher), he’s the best storyteller of the three by far, and the game is still our national pastime. You’d think the interfacing of a scuffler/gambler with purebred athletes would make fascinating reading. Yet, other than a single sentence recalling that he did indeed play, baseball doesn’t make the cut here.

He also pulls a few punches in dealing with the fracas that almost cost him his freedom, the cocaine-conspiracy mess involving his lifelong buddy, the late Greg Hatch. Barely four pages for an ordeal that could have effectively ended his life? Here’s how weak the case against him was: Fifteen men, all told, were indicted in the drug-trafficking case, and of the first 14, two were found guilty and the other 12 pled guilty. The prosecutorial team trying the case numbered five distinguished attorneys, and they had eight days’ worth of witnesses. And it took the jury less than two hours to acquit him of all charges. How come I can give you more details on the case than Dan’s book can?

He graciously declines to lower the boom on ABC-TV’s sports honcho, the late Chet Forte, who is here for a few pages that recall a blindfolded free-throw shooting contest at one of the celebrated Johnston City tournaments. (ABC used to telecast highlights of the Johnston City events on “Wide World of Sports,” where Danny D’s pool career really took off, and Forte was a hoops star at Columbia University before his broadcast career.) Forte later lost a fortune, his job, and his reputation to compulsive sports betting, but Dan lets him off the hook cleanly. And the most peculiar omission of all is the diatribe we’d logically expect from Dan against Rudolph Wanderone Jr. Dan and the man called “Minnesota Fats” detested one another all their days. Not once, but twice, Wanderone greeted Dan with, “Here’s the champeen of Florida; beat two Indians and an alligator.” Dan, in turn, not only made the unpleasant man publicly back down, but told any media representative who would listen that it was their ignorance that had elevated the Porcine One to fame, and not any playing ability that the man claimed. “Wouldn’t I sound foolish if I announced that I could drive a golf ball 500 years, or kick 80-yard field goals, or do a 720-degree dunk? But in pool, you have the masses, who know nothing, and you have the media, who know nothing. He’s free to say anything he likes.” So were you in your book, Dan; how come you didn’t say more?

We probably don’t need an entire chapter on how well Dan throws a golf ball (a football field-plus, in his prime). Forte turns up as “Chuck,” not Chet, on one page. And I’m sorry, but there were two players who called themselves “Youngblood.” (“Road Player” confuses one for the other, and the two men were at least two generations apart in age.) His Army experience comes off as pure trivia, and how come he was discharged at a point when he would have been in his late 20s? And while he shares plenty of wisdom about hustling, there really isn’t much about pool itself.

Yet, his best pool stories are wonderful, and the chapter titled “Disciplines and Guidelines” includes some of the best writing pool has ever seen. “Road Player” probably belongs on your shelf. It will make you feel like playing. There may be no higher praise.