Pool Injuries

There's been a few amusing threads on AZ lately. Some of the responses in the thread about breaking cue sticks were Great. A few yrs back I came across information on people having to go to the emergency room from a pool game injury. It was not from fighting and being stupid drunk but from the equipment in hand so to speak. Personally I broke my opponents collar bone in the sixties during high school....I miscued and launched it on a GCI in Wheaton IL. I've also been hit by a ball chunk that came loose around the number area while watching a match.

I lost my temper once and launched a ball (by banging it downward with cue) into the rail, it hopped up and off the table RIGHT at a person's head.... it was truly right at it. My good friend and opponent that day whipped out his hand in with almost god like accuracy, it seemed to me at the time, caught the cb. Never again.... really, I got so lucky and I have gotten mad since but that was a lucky outcome and a very "cheap" lesson for me. I was always so glad that thing didnt hit the back of her skull.

tylerdurden said:

I lost my temper once and launched a ball (by banging it downward with cue) into the rail, it hopped up and off the table RIGHT at a person's head.... it was truly right at it. My good friend and opponent that day whipped out his hand in with almost god like accuracy, it seemed to me at the time, caught the cb. Never again.... really, I got so lucky and I have gotten mad since but that was a lucky outcome and a very "cheap" lesson for me. I was always so glad that thing didnt hit the back of her skull.

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id be interested in more of this story......
pm is acceptable

^i'm happy to talk about it because i got off so easy, meaning it should have hit her, but didn't somehow. #1 my opponent didnt even have to be where he was, and #2 he definitely didn't need to have this innate ability to catch the ball so perfectly somehow.

she wasn't watching the game, she was facing away from the table looking at something else. she never even knew it happened. but when i got mad i just lost control and kinda flailed my cue at a ball (this happened more than i would like to admit back then), the ball hit the rail perfectly and took the trajectory way higher than i would have ever expected, and that was really all there was too it. i'll call it my "idiot not being punished and learning a great lesson about his temper" story since nobody got hurt its probably not the right story for the thread though

later in my "career" i was more apt to grab the chalk and toss it, but there were a few cues and even some trashcans in there at some point that didn't make it out alive.

I have two good stories. Both of these took place at hustlers Billiards in south Florida in the early 1990's. First one this kid Ted was getting ready to break a 9 ball rack. He says to everyone "check out my power break baby" He was bridging off the end rail and he had a tendency to raise his bridge hand up when trying to break hard and he would pull the cue back all the way through his fingers and then go back through. Well this asshole in attempt to crush the rack tried to hit them as hard as he possibly could. Well he pulled the cue all the way back and when he came forward his bridge hand slipped. The tip of his cue hits the railing on the way through and flies up and hits this jerkoff dead in his bottom lip.. he busted his lip wide open with his own cue, blood everywhere, emergency room and stitches.. we laughed our asses off. The 2nd one was a scam. A regular who had been going to Hustlers since they had opened years before was shooting one night. The guy on the next table miscues and the cueball flew up and hit the regular in the head (barely touched him) he waited about 10 seconds and then flopped on the ground and sued the owner.

You stirred my thoughts back to the Chicago area, s. west suburbs. I came in one day, probably 1966 and saw the cloth on a GC I torn/ripped wide open from the head of the table to the foot with the cloth/rag at the time hanging over the ball box area. I asked the owner, 'what happened'? Evidently the older guy working the counter got his number called for the draft and had to go to Vietnam. What he did was drink at work, this was back in the day there was NO alcohol in any room. I heard he jumped from table to table around the room till he slipped and ripped the cloth, probably hurt pretty good landing on the table bed/rails and toss in the concrete floor.:frus

My only regret here is that I did not actually see this happen myself. It was witnessed by my good friend Bobby McNamara whom I played every day for 5 years in the late 1980's. It happened at Tremell's which was an all night coffee shop on Saginaw Street in Flint, MI that had bar boxes and was known for gambling. These two guys were playing and came to strong words over the game. I don't know, maybe the one guy said he wasn't going to pay or something. Anyway, one guy reaches for a gun and the other guy breaks his cue on the table and stabbs the guy with the gun. He stabbed him underhanded and got lucky. It went through the guys heart and killed him right there. Bobby will swear to seeing this and has never changed his story even though I have heard him repeat it dozens of times.

petie said:

My only regret here is that I did not actually see this happen myself. It was witnessed by my good friend Bobby McNamara whom I played every day for 5 years in the late 1980's. It happened at Tremell's which was an all night coffee shop on Saginaw Street in Flint, MI that had bar boxes and was known for gambling. These two guys were playing and came to strong words over the game. I don't know, maybe the one guy said he wasn't going to pay or something. Anyway, one guy reaches for a gun and the other guy breaks his cue on the table and stabbs the guy with the gun. He stabbed him underhanded and got lucky. It went through the guys heart and killed him right there. Bobby will swear to seeing this and has never changed his story even though I have heard him repeat it dozens of times.

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That's the reasoning, when back in the 80's when I sold billiard products you could NOT own house wooden cues in a bar in NY city, it was the law and probably still is. Wasn't easy finding cues of another material back then.

Ouch! Double ouch!

Ouch! Double ouch!

In Dallas, in the sixties, I saw a guy break the balls and the cue ball just grazed the top of the one ball and hit a guy sitting on the next table square between the eyes. The only two sounds heard were the ball hitting him and his head hitting the table. Out cold, but not long enough for us to "search" him.
My own worse pain came from leaning over too far to shoot and my feet slipped out from under me. Let your imagination take over, guys, but, needless to say, I thought I'd never enjoy fathers day.
Keep it painless. Alfie

Alf....we've all had the ''nut job'' slip at one time, especially the taller players :help

I use to hate it when I had to level off and strike the cue ball very hard on a shot and my shooting hand would collide with the side of the table because I'm concentrating so hard on the shot. When I was playing a lot, I must have done it once a week or more...

If using equipment as a weapon counts, I saw a shortstop named Mike Nichols (I'm pretty sure it was Mike, everything's a little hazy from back then) put a guys eye out with his cue in 1985 at JB's in Minneapolis. Mike was stuck $4000 air-balling this roadie, and when time came to pay up, Mike tried to make a break for it. The roadie's buddy came up with a pistol and took a shot at Nichols. He missed and Mike broke a beautiful Joss over his head butt first. Made quite a mess.

There was this short stop who loved to play but had a serious flaw in his fundamentals. He twisted his wrist on nearly every shot, especially shots which required a little extra power.He knew the flaw was there but try as he might, he never was able to overcome this tendancy to twist the wrist.

Well one day this "player" was playing for a fair amount of money and was beginning to take the heat when the shot of the day arrived. He lined up and fired! Twist-o-matic! The cue ball veered off line and before his opponent could reach the table for his shot this guy slammed his fist into the rail busting his wrist like a hand grenade had gone off inside.

A week later he was back in the pool room playing with a cast on his hand that reached nearly to the elbow. He had it made with an indentation along the palm area so the butt of the cue stick would fit and still allow him to craddle the cue in his finger tips.

I know this is a long story but the interesting thing about it is that since that time this nut was not capable of twisting his wrist any longer, and within a very short period of time became a far better player. He continued his improvement after the removal of the cast and never reverted back to the old ways of twisting his wrist.

Odd how things work out sometimes, isn't it?

Tom

I got sucker punched once while I was crouched with my hands in the back of a bar box grabbing the balls to rack 'em. I never crouch anymore.

petie said:

I got sucker punched once while I was crouched with my hands in the back of a bar box grabbing the balls to rack 'em. I never crouch anymore.

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If someone Ever breaks the rack while I'm standing behind I always cover my face, then politely say, PLEASE WAIT, cause if you injure me I'll have to quit and there's no way for you to make a good $core.

Island Drive said:

If someone Ever breaks the rack while I'm standing behind I always cover my face, then politely say, PLEASE WAIT, cause if you injure me I'll have to quit and there's no way for you to make a good $core.

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Ooooh that's the worst. I had several suckers try to shark me by breaking in my face like that and making my ears ring, even after I mentioned it. Hated that so bad...

Jimmy B said:

Ooooh that's the worst. I had several suckers try to shark me by breaking in my face like that and making my ears ring, even after I mentioned it. Hated that so bad...

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not sure when but many years ago, like 30, I was paying kid in the old Cofax billiards in Denver. It was late and the bars had closed and occasionally some one would drop in and drop something.
Anyway, bettting $5.00 per game, I beat this kid like 20 games in a row and he was going off because I made him pay after each game.
He was racking the balls and they had the old heavy wooden racks. He begains smashing himself in the forehead with the rack until he is bleeding profusely. Leon Ledford was the house man and near going crazy trying to stop the guy. ME? i got the hell out of the way and let him bash himself crazy.
Finally the paramedics were called. he was bandaged up but would not play anymore.

Does pain from a wife count?

Does pain from a wife count?

In Dallas, in the sixties, Savannah Red Peterson came running into the bowling alley pool area with his forehead split open pretty good. His wife came running in after him, high heel in hand, and said "You son-of-a-bitch. You better give me back my false teeth." Red put his hand over his shirt pocket and said "I ain't gonna do it baby. You'll leave me for sure."
Keep it single. Alfie

Was in Roswell,N.M. in the early 60s, saw a guy leaning over the table for a shot and a guy walked up behind him hit him behind the head so hard the guys head hit the table and he was out. The guy reach into the guys pocket took $20.00 out of his wallet with him laid out on the table and said ," when he wakes up tell him he doesn't owe me that 20 anymore.--Smitty

I've told this story on here before but I still like it (and it's a no s**ter too).

Back in 1966 in Key West we played a 9 ball variation in which if you made the 9 with other balls still on the table the money changed hands but the 9 was spotted & the game continued. A full time player everybody called "Greazy" was playing a sailor for $5 and had been stalling for a while. When the sailor was up $25 he said "Guys I gotta get back to the ship". Of course Greazy balked and said he deserved at least one chance to get even. They agreed to play one last game for the $25.

When Greezy made the 9 for the fifth time, the sailor whacked him over the head with his stick and ran for the door.

I've always thought there must be a lesson in there somewhere.