The Corner Pocket

There's a bit of eeriness in reading what was written about someone 40 years ago and now finding that they fairly recently passed away, and realizing that what you read and have now re-read was actually enough to form the basis for their brief, written sendoff.

For me, this was certainly the case when I pulled out of my archives a 'Sports of the Times' piece by Robery Lipsyte who wrote about Bill Maloney, an adept three cushion billiard player who wrapped up a tournament at New York's McGirr's pool, billiard hall by trouncing the opposition--my friend included--giving away "spots" to try and level the playing field.

The tournament took place in early June 1971 and the piece appeared in the paper June 17, 1971. You'll have to either see me, or go to that place called a library to get an archival database link to the well-crafted story of Bill Maloney's life up to that point. Pool and billiards are distinctly different games that only look alike to people who see no distinction in anything.

Billiards is played on a felt covered table that has no pockets, with a cue ball, and two object balls. Pool, or pocket billiards, is played on a nearly similar table, but one that has six pockets to swallow any of 15 accurately hit object balls, and perhaps the cue ball, if you goof up. Keeping the cue ball out of the belly of a pocket will improve your chances of winning.

There even seems to be some evidence that pool halls were really billiard halls that became repositories of the betting slips, or policy numbers that were 'pooled' in a central place before being passed on for further distribution up the chain of command that governed the illegal, but highly popular and lucrative activity of playing the daily number.

Billiards was always seen as the purer game over pocket pool. Certain sin and corruption awaited those in River City, I-O-WA when Professor Harold Hill pointed out that the billiard hall was now going to have a "pool" table installed. "Pool starts with 'P', and that rhymes with 'T', and that spells trouble." Hard to argue with the alphabet. This of course was in the musical 'Music Man,' but nonetheless reflected what was felt about the coming popularity of pool that catered to ball bangers and resembled bowling on a table. Lowlifes.

Billiards was popular in the Midwest. My mother's younger brother would rather play billiards than pool and first showed me the game on a pocketless table that was guided by a "diamond system" of markings, resembling arrowheads, on the tops of the side rails. William Hoppe was considered in higher esteem than Willie Mosconi, both champions, but one at billiards, the other at pool.

Into the rarefied air of billiards floated Bill Maloney. I've been a NYT reader for many, many years, and know thay never write about billiard or pool players with any regularity, and certainly didn't often make them subjects of the 'Sports of the Times' column. Add to this the story-telling ability of the Lipsyte piece, and my own connection to having seen the player in the action that gave birth to the story, well, you might understand why I've held onto the clipping for 40 years.

Re-reading it I was struck by details I had so long ago forgotten about. Bill Maloney, slightly older than us, went to Stuyvesant High school. My friend and I did as well. Bill lived in Manhattan, as we did at the time. Bill spent time at Julian's Billiard Academy, a 14th street slight-walkup emporium hard by the Academy of Music, a former opera house, theater, turned movie theater that have all long ago disappeared into new bricks.

Julian's had the same look as Ames, the backdrop for the movie 'The Hustler' and even McGirr's. Dark places, whose tables were lit by low hanging lamps and ringed with high strings of abacus beads for score keeping. The high tension wires that would tell the tale of who was winning.

While my friend and I knew of and played at Julian's, we practiced our craft at Broadway Billiards, closer to my friend's home. Broadway was under the vast penny arcade at 52nd and Broadway. It was run by Mr. Monaco and was bright, clean, and basically free of any "characters," basically because Mr. Monaco didn't tolerate it.

There were many pool tables, and eventually a few billiard tables. Pool tournaments were held there and we watched several of the old guard face off for games of 150 point straight pool tournaments. Never nine ball. The arcade and pool hall are gone, long ago replaced by the Novotel Hotel and tears.

I never became good at either billiards, or pool, but my friend did. He didn't hustle, he didn't gamble on it, but he did excel at it. The assembled would never even play him straight pool, for time, even up. And remember, at this point we were both in high school. Dennis, ever the competitor, took up three cushion billiards, somewhat like a violinist would take up the piano. Just to find out.

He didn't come close to the skill level needed for tournament play, but did enter the tornament at McGirr's because he was always confident about anything he ever did. He got an automatic five spot from Maloney in a 15 point match. And while Dennis did put together a bit of a run, he was absolutely no match for Maloney, who may have won the match at 15-8, the spot included.

It was great theater, and it was even more fun to later see the whole event turn into a column I've long treasured. The Internet and Google brought me up-to-date with Bill Maloney. He passed away in 2009. There are some simple, short sendoffs that will likely stay there as long as there is an Internet. There is also a picture of Bill showing that he really didn't seem to change much since his appearance in 1971. He still had the choir-boy looks, and was as lithe-looking as when we saw him wordlessly demolish the opposition, including my friend.

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