It's time to talk about one of the most extraordinary pool matches in the 20th century.
A competitive match between two of Billiards most renowned players. Willie Mosconi and Rudolf Wanderone (Minnesota Fats) and to top it all off the whole thing is narrated by none other than Howard Cosell the man whose voice is well known even to this day. Tho most of you probably know his voice from boxing.
Howard Cosell is the real meat of this game. It takes a lot of skill to commentate over a sport especially one is minut and uninteresting as pool. Now I love pool, it's one of my favourite things to play. But having to talk about the game and relay the information back to a general audience. That's not an easy task, especially when you're dealing with nine ball. A game where you literally count from 1 to 9 as you sink each individual ball. But leave it to old Howard to make even the most simplistic of a game interesting to watch.
He's cool Suave and almost monotone voice works ideally and he's able to play off of the characteristics of Willie and Fats to bring out just the smallest bit of drama without interrupting the game.This leads us on to what the match is really about. It's not about the scale of the individual player. Both fats and Willie have proved over the years that they are extremely talented at their sport. And to have such radically different play styles that it's unfair to compare the two. But it's personalities that make this match so interesting.
Mosconi is a straightforward man. Both in how he acts and how he plays, he doesn't like to make up tallest tails and exaggerated his life. He's worked in the film industry usually as a consultant for the pool games in such hits as ''The Hustler''
He's method of pool is straight to the point. Almost in a literal sense, he's the kind of guy that can hit ball after ball. He doesn't go for fancy trick shots or try to hit more than one ball at a time. You simply sees with a ball is on the table calls with pocket it needs to go into and then proceeds to make it happen. He ones did this 527 times. Creating a world record that (to the best of my knowledge) hasn't been surpassed to this day.
And then we have Rudolph. He's voicetress, he's loud, he's a bit of a liar and he's a natural-born pool-shark.
he loves to tell stories of how he made hundreds of dollars in a pool game in a single night back in the 1940s. He also likes talking about how the film 'The Hustler' was based off of him. And that he is the real life Minnesota fats.
He prefers trick shots. Bouncing one ball off the other to make another random ball go into the pocket. Or performing strange manoeuvres where he'll put down a set of pool cues directly onto the table, hit a ball onto said pool cue so that it can travel down hit another ball at the end and bounce off into a different corner pocket.
They're all tricks that require calculation and some degree of setup. They'll fancy but ultimately don't serve you well in a straight competitive game. Fats also complains that Willy's form of pool is dated and uninteresting. Stating that only Chumps Play Straight pool in an attempt to make small amounts of money with long sessions of play. Where as he can make one or two trick shots and win $50 in a single round.
I'm personally not a fan of Rudolph style of play. trick shots and manipulation have become all the rage in pool these days. And people are more interested in seeing crazy physics then straight up skill. Give me a man who can shoot a straight game of 9-ball and win the whole thing in exactly 9 shots.
Now there is a real reason the two are competing against each other. One can make all the allegations they want about the competitive nature of the two wanting to prove to one another that their skill is superior to the other or that it might be a conflict of personality. But there is a very real $15,000 on line here. Which is a ridiculous amount of money for a pool game.
but then they do play an awful lot of games. There's about 10 games of 9 ball between the two of them.
They also mouth off to each other an awful lot. I don't think I remember seeing players even talking to each other in the modern pool game. The whole thing so stagnant now. Two men should be able to get into a massive brawl over $1,000 bet they put on the side of the main game they were playing in the first place. To get so heated that the referee tells them to get back to the game and then does nothing when the two men continue to argue with one another.
Or at least that's half of it. That's the Glorious thing about this game. It's all jokes and insults in the beginning but as time goes on the to become a lot more solemn in their game and start playing with a lot more Intent. Despite my bias I might have Rudolph he is a solid player. He can afford to be cocky because he knows that is chances of winning are quite High. And then if he's given an opportunity he'll take it.
Interspersed throughout the game itself are the small segments where they film both Fats and Willie talking about their different styles, how they play the game and occasionally talking about their opponents. It creates this real sense of competition. Kind of like a setup for an old boxing match or possibly a setup to how modern-day wrestling works. Though I have little to no actual info on wrestling so that may have to be corrected.
If there's one thing I can convey about both of these men it's their reaction to how they play the game. They don't look at pool as a sports game where you have to wear a strange polyester shirt that looks like it belongs on a golf course and stupid-looking gloves so that you give off the image that you're an extreme sports Enthusiast. They both understand what pool is. It's a game you play in a bar while smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer (or a martini if you're more accustomed). It's a game of social activity.
But really above all it's an entertaining game to watch. Which is something I usually can't say about sports games of any sort. They all become a bit samey after a while.
But this has enough entertainment pizzazz to elevated beyond your casual pool game without interrupting the actual game itself.
You can find the game all over the Internet and it's easy enough to watch. Unfortunately whoever recorded this initially back in the day either Over Watched there tape or just had a bad tape to begin with. There's a lot of static and tracking issues and it's possible that their cable connection or rabbit ears wasn't the best of quality. But you can still watch the majority of the game and that's better than nothing.
Mosconi is a straightforward man. Both in how he acts and how he plays, he doesn't like to make up tallest tails and exaggerated his life. He's worked in the film industry usually as a consultant for the pool games in such hits as ''The Hustler''
He's method of pool is straight to the point. Almost in a literal sense, he's the kind of guy that can hit ball after ball. He doesn't go for fancy trick shots or try to hit more than one ball at a time. You simply sees with a ball is on the table calls with pocket it needs to go into and then proceeds to make it happen. He ones did this 527 times. Creating a world record that (to the best of my knowledge) hasn't been surpassed to this day.
And then we have Rudolph. He's voicetress, he's loud, he's a bit of a liar and he's a natural-born pool-shark.
he loves to tell stories of how he made hundreds of dollars in a pool game in a single night back in the 1940s. He also likes talking about how the film 'The Hustler' was based off of him. And that he is the real life Minnesota fats.
He prefers trick shots. Bouncing one ball off the other to make another random ball go into the pocket. Or performing strange manoeuvres where he'll put down a set of pool cues directly onto the table, hit a ball onto said pool cue so that it can travel down hit another ball at the end and bounce off into a different corner pocket.
I'm personally not a fan of Rudolph style of play. trick shots and manipulation have become all the rage in pool these days. And people are more interested in seeing crazy physics then straight up skill. Give me a man who can shoot a straight game of 9-ball and win the whole thing in exactly 9 shots.
Now there is a real reason the two are competing against each other. One can make all the allegations they want about the competitive nature of the two wanting to prove to one another that their skill is superior to the other or that it might be a conflict of personality. But there is a very real $15,000 on line here. Which is a ridiculous amount of money for a pool game.
but then they do play an awful lot of games. There's about 10 games of 9 ball between the two of them.
They also mouth off to each other an awful lot. I don't think I remember seeing players even talking to each other in the modern pool game. The whole thing so stagnant now. Two men should be able to get into a massive brawl over $1,000 bet they put on the side of the main game they were playing in the first place. To get so heated that the referee tells them to get back to the game and then does nothing when the two men continue to argue with one another.
Or at least that's half of it. That's the Glorious thing about this game. It's all jokes and insults in the beginning but as time goes on the to become a lot more solemn in their game and start playing with a lot more Intent. Despite my bias I might have Rudolph he is a solid player. He can afford to be cocky because he knows that is chances of winning are quite High. And then if he's given an opportunity he'll take it.
Interspersed throughout the game itself are the small segments where they film both Fats and Willie talking about their different styles, how they play the game and occasionally talking about their opponents. It creates this real sense of competition. Kind of like a setup for an old boxing match or possibly a setup to how modern-day wrestling works. Though I have little to no actual info on wrestling so that may have to be corrected.
If there's one thing I can convey about both of these men it's their reaction to how they play the game. They don't look at pool as a sports game where you have to wear a strange polyester shirt that looks like it belongs on a golf course and stupid-looking gloves so that you give off the image that you're an extreme sports Enthusiast. They both understand what pool is. It's a game you play in a bar while smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer (or a martini if you're more accustomed). It's a game of social activity.
But really above all it's an entertaining game to watch. Which is something I usually can't say about sports games of any sort. They all become a bit samey after a while.
But this has enough entertainment pizzazz to elevated beyond your casual pool game without interrupting the actual game itself.
You can find the game all over the Internet and it's easy enough to watch. Unfortunately whoever recorded this initially back in the day either Over Watched there tape or just had a bad tape to begin with. There's a lot of static and tracking issues and it's possible that their cable connection or rabbit ears wasn't the best of quality. But you can still watch the majority of the game and that's better than nothing.
Comments
Post a Comment