Billiards: Return of Willie

Promoters call it pocket billiards and push it as a harmless pastime. But for those who really play the game, pool is a mankiller. Robert Cannafax used to fly into such a rage when his game went awry that he would haul out a pocketknife and stab himself repeatedly in his wooden leg. George Fox, another champion, committed suicide after he miscued what would have been his winning ball in the 1865 U.S. championship. Years later, when he lost the championship, Onofrio Lauri rushed out of a Chicago poolroom, cue in hand, and almost threw himself into Lake Michigan before friends caught him.

Then there is Willie Mosconi, 52, the greatest of all, who gave up the pool circuit eight years ago, fearing for his life. The game had turned his hair grey at 21, and during tournaments he used to lose eight pounds and often chewed his tongue until blood ran. At last, in 1957, after he had won the world championship for the 15th time, a stroke convinced him that he ought to quit.

No one who has experienced such sublime misery can stay away indefinitely, and last week Oldtimers Lauri and Mosconi chalked up again. It was a threeday, 1,000-point match, arranged to raise money for ailing Lauri’s medical bills. A charitable New York poolroom lent a table, cut off the recorded music out of respect for the occasion, and crowded in 1,000 of the faithful. As Lauri, 69, made his runs, Mosconi wore a crushing expression of disdain. It upset Lauri’s concentration so much that he committed an inexcusable scratch—missing the object ball entirely. “You play with this guy,” groaned Lauri, “and you get punch-drunk.”

When Mosconi stepped to the table, he had the game to go with the gamesmanship. Playing four to six shots ahead, he carefully avoided dangerous combinations and bank shots. Those he left to Lauri—and a postgame exhibition in which he showed some fancy stuff, including a six-ball combination, one ball for each pocket. During the competition itself, he peppered the pockets with wonderfully simple-looking straight shots, so rapidly that he was literally trotting around the table. With runs of 79 and 80, Mosconi won by 148 balls.

Even after eight years away from the pressures, years spent in nothing more taxing than promoting billiards for Brunswick Corp., Mosconi is firmly convinced that the world’s best player is still Mosconi. “I always did think so,” he says. “No one is ever going to change my mind, even if they beat me.”