I have always been a banger, but during the early and mid-70s and some years later I had the good fortune to see some of the better players in Fort Worth and North Texas. Utley Puckett, white-haired and wearing his hat and holding court, would stop by The Golden Nugget often, and his protégé of that time was Frank 'Bird' Thompson, who was a first rate young nine-baller.
I like to keep Frank's name alive and out there, because unfortunately 'Bird' died very young of cancer. He was a student of the game, loved 9-ball, and had a side-arm stroke that was wonderful to watch. Back then shafts were changing, and Bird was so proud of his new shaft - it was 13.75 mm, I think he believed the extra diameter was an advantage compared to say, 12.5mm or 13mm shafts.
Bird was a great guy, about the same age as another local player named Dick Lane, who went on to a nice pool career . The only photo I ever had of Bird was when he beat out Lane in some tournament in Texas, and in the photo they were both shaggy hippy types, and Lane looked like he could use a bath. Bird's death at such a young age was a real loss to pool, he could have been a great one. His contemporary Dick Lane was in and out of pool for years, amassing a record of pool wins that got him highlighted in Texas Monthly as "the Shootist", and apparently made big bucks as an early investor in Clicks Billiards. The Lane article is here:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/shootist?fullpage=1
Anyway, later about 1986-7-8 I played in a tournament at a huge brand new bowling alley in Wichita Falls. It was supposed to have a million dollars worth of steel in the roof alone, and boy was it a neat place. This pool event was its first, designed to bring in a lot of players, especially locals, and there were few real serious pool players entered. As I recall eventually UJ Puckett won, he could still beat all the little guys, or maybe it was the much younger Sparky Webb, who could play pretty sporty himself. I forget exactly who won.
As for me, I won my first and second rounds, then lost to my old acquaintance 'The Greek', and after losing I disappeared from pool mostly forever. But I was hopeful to make some good in this event, and my first opponent was going down as I was beating him for the last game making me 5-4 winner. After I pocketed the nine to win the set (or so I thought), my opponent jumped up and said "Well that makes us even!!"
Being a real naïve guy when it came to pool, I realized it was either a fist fight, or a shouting match which I could not win, or rack 'em up for my next break and take my chances. So I racked the balls, then broke the rack, and wouldn't you know the nine casually rolled over and dropped into a side pocket. Take that, ha ha. No argument now, win, set and match for me. I looked at the guy and said "We're not even any more". He gave me a disgusted looked and walked away.
My other little event was a Sunday night bar tourney, the kind that gets ten players and pays a hundred bucks to the winner and every body else gets nothing. I breezed through the winners side. The same middle-aged Fort Worth pool player and gambler who later beat me in Wichita Falls, whom we called "the Greek", was sitting with me, cheerleading and giving me verbal support. So of course I had a long wait for the winner of the losers bracket to come to play. I was not too serious, and I lost that first game of the final match. Now I suddenly realized that hundred bucks (which I had already pocketed, at least in my imagination) was not a sure thing at all. One more loss and I was going home out of the money.
In the final and deciding game of 8-ball I ran down to the eight but my position on the eight was terrible. Opponents balls were blocking me all around. The eight was close to the short rail, about the first diamond, my cue ball at the second diamond up the long rail on the other side of the table. The natural straight-in corner pocket for the eight was covered by two opposing balls, it was too close to the foot rail to cross-bank into the other foot rail corner.
So I called my shot, then banked the eight, one rail all the way the length of the table, with the cue coming across the table and hitting the eight across its face, like a cross-over bank shot in one-pocket. The eight fell right into the center of the corner pocket all the way down table. It went in easy and natural. I was happy - it was a planned shot, not a luck shot, but I could not repeat it three of ten times for any amount.
The locals were pretty mad about this shot, there were grumblings about 'hustler" - me ever being any sort of a hustler was the most ridiculous thing ever, but they did not know that. Anyway I quickly took my hundred bucks and blasted out the door and sped out of the parking lot. Of course The Greek, the old gambler, had a nose for trouble, and he was at the door and out quick too - I suppose he saw I was coming out fast and had a good lead on the locals, so he was not waiting around for anything.
