My Summer With Fats...

It was a Spring day in Marshall, Missouri, circa 1963.

I'd been living in this college town whilst pretending to go to college for a year.  I say "pretending" to go to college, because most often I didn't.  That's because I'd been playing pool professionally for several years by then, making money hand over fist and racing cars and playing poker and drinking beer and staying out of the draft, and therefore, Viet Nam, was a high priority of mine at the time.  So I was registered, and sometimes went, but you could find me either at the local pool hall or on the road and hustling the uninitiated out of their filthy lucre in some wide-spot-in-the-road, Midwestern town.

I headed on off to "Twilling's Bar and Pool Hall" in Marshall.  As I entered I saw that an exhibition was taking place toward the rear.  There were about 70 or 80 locals gathered around a table all the way in the back.  All lights in the place were off except for that one.  It harshly illuminated a really fat, white-haired older guy with an untucked, stained white shirt.  Although more than portly, he danced around the table like a ballerina, smacking in balls with abandon.  Each shot carefully called in advance in his southern patois so as to remove any chance it had been luck.  Each shot was beautiful, artful, exemplary.  This guy was gooood!  

And each shot was peppered with an unending stream of Southern drawl coming from his slobbery mouth.  He would exclaim, "Didja' see that shot?  Nobody could make that shot!  I can't even make that shot!  Who made that shot?"  Where'd that guy go?"  The crowd would roar with laughter, and their laughter seemed to further fuel his pitch.  He went on for more than an hour, calling fancy shots and proclaiming himself the World's Best!  And he ended his little show with, "I'm the best pool player in the entire world!  And if anyone here doubts me, then step right up and get your ass handed to you!"

Well of course, at that, I had to step up.  And the crowd laughed with glee.  They knew me, you see (it was one of my regular haunts), so they knew they were in for a treat.  Over the course of the next half-hour or so I beat this bastard like a drum.  Like a red-headed stepchild.  Like a rented mule.  I was that good, you see.  No brag, just fact.  At the time the odds out of Vegas had me in the Top 50 in America.  Don't know where on the list one could find me, but Top 50 is still pretty good.

Except this guy was Rudolph Wanderone, Jr.  Or, as he was better known, Minnesota Fats.  He'd previously been known as "New York Fats," but adopted the named used by Jackie Gleason in the terrific 1961 movie, "The Hustler."  In fact, he sued the studio over "appropriating his likeness," and won an unnamed amount.  I heard it was $75,000, which is not nothing.  But anyway, it helped to launch him on his mini-career giving exhibitions, like the one underway in Marshall that day.  

He'd never been world champ, or even a state champ, but he was good enough, when coupled with his motor mouth, to set up residency in his opponents' heads and to always be competitive.  Most often he gave exhibitions, like the one undertaken in Marshall that day, or played for high-stakes in some grungy pool hall with some poor schlub who didn't know his reputation.  And I knew that.  I knew well of him.  

But he didn't know me...

I'd been playing pool since the age of 13, and playing professionally by 16 (my Dad was 1928, '29 Missouri State pool champion, so I came by my talent righteously).  I'd entered and won many 9-ball and 3-cushion and Call-Shot tournaments by this time, including the 1961 Nebraska State Snooker Championship and the Missouri "All-Around."  I thought everybody wore a money belt and carried a gun.  Put it this way:  I was more of a pool hall rat than a college student at the time.  Much more.  As Fats was soon to learn...

This poor bastard didn't know what hit him.  It was somewhat embarrassing, but hey, it had to be done.  I took him apart like a Woolworth watch.  I guess he'd never faced someone equally skilled at camping out in an opponent's head.  My mouth, you see, was the equal of his own.  Dad having been a killer salesman, again, it's in the DNA.  Fats seemed shocked at first, then pissed, and then finally accepting.  He began smiling and nodding with approval.  I guess he figured, if you can't beat the crowd, join 'em.  When the applause died down and I left Twilling's, he followed me out.  

After congratulating me on the victory, which seemed very genuine, he asked what I'd be doing that summer.  Strange question, I thought.  "Why," I asked.  "Because," he said, "I put on exhibitions all over the place.  And I need somebody to be in the audience, just like you were.  And I need somebody to raise their hand when I ask if anyone is dumb enough to play me, just like you did.  And I need somebody to be my shill, to play me while I talk to the audience.  Just like you.  Except, you gotta' lose..."  

"Lose?" I asked?  "Yeah, lose.  Ya' gotta' tank."  "Why would I do that," I asked?  "Because I'm gonna' pay you $100 bucks for each exhibition..."

Now, it should be known that I was making beau coup bucks by this time.  But $100 was real money.  It was a week's pay for a mailman.  You could buy a new Chevy convertible for about $3,500 at the time, so that gives you some sort of sense of what a hundred bucks could buy.  So, I thought about it for awhile, and needing a good adventure in my life, I bit.  We became a team.  Me and Minnesota Fats.  A damn good one at that...

I did my little act with Fats about 25 times that summer.  And enjoyed each one.  We started at the Grand Olive Billiards in St. Louis and moved east.  Day after day we'd do our little dance.  All over Missouri and Illinois and Arkansas and Iowa.  And so far as I know, no one ever got wise to it.  It was just one of many creative little deviations I became involved in while trying to stay alive.  And ahead of the game.  And out of the draft...

Ever see the movie, "The Sting?"  Yeah, sort of like that...

EPILOGUE:  My professional billiards career ended with a letter from my Draft Board.  I played off and on after that, such as winning the 1968 European Billiards Championship, but my life was focused primarily on building a business and a family.  

Fats, however, always maintained that he could beat Willie Mosconi.  Now, for those who don't recognize that name, he was very simply the best to ever play the game of pool.  Without question.  And I would know.  I played him.  And he beat me.  But he also beat Minnesota Fats in the most televised sporting event in television history up to that time.  On Valentine's Day, 1978, Fats met Willie on the roof of the Starlight Hotel in Manhattan.  20 million people tuned in to watch a 5-game match between these two lions of the game.  And as I indicated above,  I would know.  Despite Fat's efforts to talk Willie out of his best game that night, Willie still managed to hand Fats his hat.  As in, buh bye!  

I won the Nebraska State Snooker Championship in 1961.  The year I turned 18.  My main prize for so doing was the chance to play Willie Mosconi, retired 18-time Billiards Congress of America World Champion, on television at the grand opening of the Olympic Lanes in St. Joseph, Missouri.  Willie was a touring spokesman for Brunswick, the main folks behind bowling alleys.  Hence, the chance to see my own personal god...  

So yes, I played Willie Mosconi on television.  And I played Minnesota Fats all one summer.

Trust me.  Willie was better.  Much, much better.  Willie was simply the best that ever lived...  

I don't often do this, but here's the link to that New York City exhibition between Fats and Willie.  I hope it works.  It's worth a moment of your time:  

https://boingboing.net/2021/01/04/watch-pool-legends-minnesota-fats-and-willie-mosconi-in-historic-match.html/amp