Mosconi's Madness
Angry, winning. Angry again, then by turns defeated, elated, mostly discouraged. Winning, winning again. Always the win.
Life on the road was crap. Life on the road for Willie Mosconi was set into motion by extraordinary circumstances (really, ordinary circumstances fueled by anger) and now the King of the Road Players was not playing pool but working. Working hard until the fire in his gut stoked so hot it could never cool.
It began (it was destined) in the days when Old Ralph Greenleaf slaughtered Young Willie Mosconi. In his resurrection, Willie, too young to realize how merciless the drunk old man was to the six-year-old in public, learned a range of billiards skills from the master by mimicry to add to his already considerable talent.
Later, as one of the best in the world by age 11, he got better and still better. Then as a young man he put his cue up, early in the 1930's. He'd had enough. No child prodigy stuff for him, no more "Ladies and gentlemen, the Junior Champeen himself from Phil-lay-del-phy-ah, William-Joseph-Mosconeeeee…"
The Kid sloughed through for a few dark years of the Great Depression, helping pay (or try to pay) the family bills as the eldest child. Lonely and tired. His chief diversion was his beloved Yankees. He'd do anything to get to a game.
On one fateful occasion he'd been promised a half day at work to catch the Bronx Bombers. His boss changed his mind, Mosconi's legendary temper was displayed, and he was gone. Now how to pay the bills?
The Kid hit the road like all the other bums. Only this bum had posters up wherever he went announcing his sanctified presence. And each local top stick, each petty baron of his local poolroom, wanted a piece.
Here's the thing-playing in all kinds of conditions against all kinds of losers who hate you in the heart of the Depression-when you're lonely half the time and pissed off the other half-will make you a gritty pool shooter. Not a mere champion but something more. The great may get lucky using proper technique as kids before they get greater as adults, but the true world beaters, the real journeymen, are always made, not born.
Mosconi had to win to put money on the family's table. He had to win to pay his expenses on the road and to scrap a few dollars together to get to the next lousy stop, the next Midwest farmer town or the next factory city. And he had to win to justify what the hell he was doing since he'd thought he'd put the cue away permanently once before.
Ever play pool out in the rain? Mosconi had, on lousy tables under ramshackle roofs. At the least the locals in the Dust Bowl were grateful for the water. The conditions toughened Mosconi until much of his anger was turned inside as a perpetual lamp that burned, "Kill, kill."
And though he could beat the tar out of you using a broomstick with a cue tip on it, and then sweep the joint clean after using the opposite end, Mosconi always carried his OCD-shiny cue sticks with him, each ferrule whiter than granny's new dentures, each shaft honed clean with plush cloth, wiped down to a luster after each use. 80 years later, no one would know at billiards auctions which of his cues had been played in exhibitions and which were gifts from sponsors and admirers that were never used at all.
He even brought with him his own balls, for gosh sake, polished pure so they wouldn't get thrown much even on the dirt table you were about to lose on in your hall, oh pool master that you were until the day Mosconi humiliated you.
Ever shoot pool under a rival's eye in a big match? Every shnook Mosconi played "on tour" was his deathly rival and stood between him and hot food for dinner. And whereas in Normalsville, U.S.A. the local players are jealous of the top stick and want to see him get his butt kicked by a traveling roadie every few years, during the G.D. all the poor people (which was most everyone in every town Mosconi visited) resented a guy with flashy balls and polished sticks who played pool for a living.
The Kid never really was a kid at all, on exhibit since age 5 and a headliner at 6. Billiards to pay doctor and grocer bills from 1,000 miles away. A Philly accent in Texas, in moving cities and towns upended by poverty. Shake some hands, do some trick shots. Shoot, shoot again, shoot some more. Don't let the other bum shoot. Ever.
Go "home" to your hotel dump for the night after the scattering of polite applause. Clean your cues and balls. Clean them again. Sleep if you can in the cold or heat under the threadbare blankets. Pack your bags. Walk to your next train depot. "Say, you played mighty fine at Moe's last night, mister." "Thanks, pal." Ride yet another train. Watch the hobos jump on and off.
To play Mosconi now, as only Arness could play him, was to subject oneself to a Holocaust of pure destruction, as methodical and studied as any uniformed Wehrmacht could devise. Mosconi would rain billiards on his opponent, plunging ball after ball-after ball after ball-in the pockets, all shot softly, so delicately, and oh so slowly.
For the opponent who backside was turning numb in their stool nearby, 200 people watching the match, betting, swearing, hardly breathing as Mosconi ran Straight Pool hour after hour, it was the equivalent of feeling one's autopsy at the hands of a geriatric surgeon with the tremors.
Arness was going to need more than a lot of talent to beat The Kid. Lucky for him, he had it.
Next installment: How Arness Got So Flaming Good
The Killer And The Mosc, Part I: 13-Rack RideThe Killer And The Mosc Part II: Roll Two Million Balls
Part III: Pickle Juice Paul
Part IV: Arness Gets A Taste
Part V: Ralph Greenleaf Kicks Willie Mosconi's Tail
Part VI: Mosconi's Madness, The Fire Down Below
Part VII: The Old Man's Three Rules Of Great Pool
Part VIII: The Men In Town To Clash
Part IX: Stand And Fight
Part X: Showdown On Cloth
Part XI: Cue Ball Killing It
Part XII: Willie's Best Bank Shot
