May

12

Book ‘Em: The Ultimate Hustle.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

May 12, 2008 |

One of my favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone is called “A Game Of Pool”. Starring Jack Klugman (in one of multiple appearances on the show) and Jonathan Winters (in his only appearance on the show, and, surprisingly, in a non-comedic role) it was, at least in part, a response to the success of the film The Hustler (Winters even played a character named “Fats Brown”) but also a study in the cost and fleeting nature of success, with a classic Twilight Zone twist. As for me, I’ve never been a great pool player but I love the game. I’m fascinated by how, in occasional broadcasts on ESPN, it’s played with both skill and decorum. And yet reading R.A. Dyer’s book The Hustler And The Champ it was often surprising to read about pool’s shady reputation. Of course the focus of Dyer’s book is a rivalry between two of the game’s best known names: Willie Mosconi and Rudolph Wanderone, also known as Minnesota Fats. Although Dyer’s book includes a brief history of billiards and stories about other famous pool players such as Ralph Greenleaf, where it really excels is in drawing a sharp contrast between Mosconi and Wanderone, two men who were close in age, size, and both pool prodigies, but, in their careers and attitudes toward the game, light years apart. Mosconi, who, as a child, was pressed into performing by his father to make money, and as an adult never took pleasure in the game. He played out of a sense of obligation, and also because he didn’t know what to do. Wanderone–who only became known as “Minnesota Fats” when he started calling himself by that name after the success of The Hustler–wasn’t really interested in the game but only in the hustle. Mosconi’s story is that of a true professional pool player; Wanderone’s is that of a professional gambler who didn’t believe in sportsmaship, fairness, or skill. Dyer could easily have gone off into moralistic editorializing, but instead finds an interesting balance, presenting Mosconi as he was, and, while treating Wanderone as a person, also delving into anthropological literature to define Minnesota Fats as a trickster figure, an interesting perspective that helps place him in the game’s history.

I believe every college campus should have a pool hall. The college I went to did, and it was run by a wonderful old man named Tom, who was a pool enthusiast. Minnesota Fats was from New York, but spent the last years of his life living in the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. When Tom learned I was from Nashville he told me, “You know, I met Minnesota Fats once, and he was a real gentleman.” And he took to calling me “Minnesota Fats”. While the truth may have been more complicated, it was meant as a compliment, and I took it as one. And I think Tom’s point also was that being a great player wasn’t nearly so important as being  a gentleman, being polite and having integrity in both pool and life. Minnesota Fats may have been a colorful, interesting character, but there’s a reason why, today, the game’s highest honor is the Mosconi Cup.


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