 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.
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October: Harvey and Don October 2025 [Reprinted from November 2006] Summertime sucks. I know that falls a tad short of George Gershwin’s elegant and immortal lyric, but he didn’t speak for the billiard universe in 2006, when we said goodbye to three all-timers. Hall of Famer Steve Mizerak went first, in his era the most visible player since Willie Mosconi and the only cue games star ever to have his death announced on ESPN. Then we lost Allen Gilbert, in my opinion still the Hall of Fame’s most conspicuous omission, with close to a dozen national three-cushion billiard championships, counting his senior’s play. And, within a day or two of Gilbert, Gene Nagy, who played hardly any tournaments yet still ranks as one of the greatest pool players/teachers who ever lived.
All three men played well for money, but that’s not what we primarily remember them for. Those who want to hide their heads in sand over this may do so, but a good deal of pool’s character arises from its being played for stakes. Always has, always will. And the glum summer of 2006 also cost us two popular competitors who existed at the elusive level know as “shortstops.” Either man had top-20 talent when it came to pool, but each had other priorities.
Vince “Pancho” Furio (aka Vince Corelli), who we lost to complications arising from diabetes, was actually christened Henry Strauss. Exactly how a Jewish kid from Forest Hills, N.Y., became a Furio or Corelli is not quite clear. One version has it that he wanted to attract the attention of some New York mob types whom he saw as potential backers. Like the goofball bike racer in the wonderful ’70s film “Breaking Away,” he wanted no identity other than Italian, and took the façade clear through his adult life. I’m not aware that he ever had the name legally changed; still, when he got married, or went to court, or did anything else requiring documentation, he stayed with the aliases. Only a tiny handful of people, including late actor Jerry Orbach and myself, knew about his real roots.
Harvey, er, Vince went to Forest Hills High School, just as a lot of nice Jewish boys do, until the night he was caught joy riding in a hot-wired car with a few buddies. “Military school or jail,” offered a joyless judge, and Vince, no dummy even then, opted for the former. Thus, he became a graduate of the prestigious Peekskill Military Academy, which would serve him well when he and his buddy, the late straight pool icon Johnny Ervolino, went into the Army together. The two men were stationed permanently at Fort Dix, barely half an hour from New York, as — get this — military police! On Saturday nights, they would stroll off the open base together in full uniform, including white gloves and helmets, and journey to Times Square together, where they would check their pistols at the door of the famous room called 711 and get into action.
Vince’s playing peak, in the late ’50s through the ’60s, was reached at the same time the game reached its artistic zenith throughout the five boroughs. Vince played everything; indeed, his approach to strangers went something like, “Play some? A little nineballstraightpoolbanksonepocketbilliardscowboy?” which he could rattle off in three or four seconds. He played out of a nearly erect stance, at a Keystone Cops pace, but he could play. I saw him get seven rails on a billiards table one-handed. As for his hustling skills, it was said that you could parachute him into a remote jungle, and he would still find a scheme to drum up action. Eventually he got out of pool and made quite a decent buck in telemarketing, not much more than an extension of those same skills.
Don “Waterdog” Edwards wasn’t nearly as flashy, nor would he have wanted to be. Literally and figuratively, he was born to be a heroin addict. His mother used drugs throughout her pregnancy; not surprisingly, little Don grew up frail and sickly. When pool finally came calling just after he turned 12, it was the very first chance he had ever had to compete with other kids. He left those buddies behind in no time; by 13, his long run was 90; by 15, it was 165, and he was on the road full time. The room in which he received his pool baptism was in his hometown of Waterbury, Conn., hence the nickname.
I’m still not sure how he managed to exist, but he did. His jones was level, in that he did not require more and more each time, nor did he ever have to turn to crime to pay for drugs. Remarkably, the dealers he would turn to never ripped him off. When he mooched a fin or sawbuck here and there, he always paid it back. Don Edwards never harmed a soul, except himself. He enjoyed his proverbial 15 minutes of fame when he was featured in a cover story for a Chicago tabloid, called “Shark Out of Water,” detailing his life and addiction. The writer tossed him 40 percent of a fairly generous fee; Don’s end, just under a grand, was undoubtedly the most money had had together in decades. Not long after, he found a shelter that would take him in providing he stayed sober, which he did. I heard he discovered real food for the first time and ballooned in weight. He was gone from the poolroom for about two years before he died.
As both men made their livings from pool at one time or another, neither courted the limelight (although Pancho did get a kick out of seeing his nickname in an Esquire magazine article on the late Luther Lassiter). The billiard media didn’t pick up on their passing, and only real insiders will remember either man. But I knew and liked both, and credit both men with making the poolroom a more interesting place to be. So long, guys.
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