You make a good point, Beatle. We've of necessity skipped over a couple of guys who were fearsome players in their day. Two that come to mind: Johnny Vevis and Johnny Ervolino.
Vevis of course won the very first Johnston City 1P, beating several HOF-ers in the process. And Ervolino won two Stardust 1Ps, along with several lesser events.
Nevertheless there might be a practical consideration in terms of the dinner itself. I don't know who's around to accept an award for either Vevis or Ervolino, although Steve has been quite a sleuth at getting inductee's relatives to accept awards in the past. There's also the matter of having enough interest to entice dinner attendees.
It might be smart to bring a guy in from the past, along with a current seasoned player like Jeremy Jones, at the same HOF ceremony.
Food for thought...
~Doc
Good observations, and it is true, sometimes it is tough finding family. One year, I found family, but not the player, because even his family had thought the reclusive Javanly 'Youngblood' Washington had died at some point after he disappeared from pool and his family circle. The funny thing was, in the crowd at the HOF dinner, for a moment Freddy lost track of the fact that Youngblood's family was present to accept, and he started to say, too bad no one there to accept after a really great acknowledgement of Youngblood, including some pretty funny stories. But yes, they were there and did accept the plaque.
The really strange twist to the story though was that a couple of years later I was contacted by a young woman that worked in a coin shop that Javanly had regularly visited -- often enough that she got to know and expect him as a regular. So when he did not show up she began to inquire in his neighborhood, and ultimately he was found dead of natural causes in his room. When his body went unclaimed at the morgue, she became an online sleuth and of course she quickly found onepocket.org and used the Contact Us form to see if we could locate his relatives. Indeed I was able to and in death he was reunited with his family through that persistent and caring young woman and onepocket.org. Amazing story really, and it meant he was indeed alive when he was inducted.
At the very least he had a quirky personality, but he was an amazing banker, perhaps the greatest ever at stringing runs of banks together (along with Eddie Taylor). He was known for proclaiming he was out, if his opponent left a little shot even if he needed a bunch of balls, and indeed banking out from there. He was the first black player to enter a major pool tournament (Johnston City) in 1962 -- three years before the BCA let Cisero Murphy in to their straight pool tournament.
