Playing Off the Rail

Author: David McCumber
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0380729237
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Book Description
At the age of 17, David McCumber was stricken with "road fever" that irresistible call to the itinerant life of a professional gambler. Twenty-two years later, he got the chance to follow that dream-not as a player but as the "stakehorse" (financial backer) for Tony Annigoni, a non-smoking, macrobiotic-eating "Renaissance Pool Hustler," student of Eastern religion, and master of the pure green-felt poetry of the dead stroke." With $27,000 in David's pocket they took off together on an astonishing four-month odyssey across America-traveling from seedy, hole-in-the-wall billiard parlors to high-class snooker rooms to high-tension pro tourneys, from Seattle to Miami and back again-exploring a shady twilight subculture and uniquely American mythos, in search of serious money, local glory...and the perfect hustle.

Running the Table

Author: L. Jon Wertheim
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618664740
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
From a popular senior writer for Sports Illustrated comes this high-stakes, boys-on-the-road story about the most unlikely of phenoms--a heavyset, bipolar, and endlessly charming pool hustler named Kid Delicious In most sports the pinnacle is Wheaties-box notoriety. But in the world of pool, notoriety is the last thing a hustler desires. Such is the dilemma that faces one Danny Basavich, an affable, generously proportioned Jewish kid from Jersey, who flounders through high school until he discovers the one thing he excels at--the felt--and hits the road. Running the Table spins the outrageous tale of Kid Delicious and his studly--if less talented--set-up man, Bristol Bob. Never was there a more entertaining or mismatched pair of sidekicks, as together they go underground into the flavorfully seamy world of pool to learn the art of the hustle and experience the highs and lows of life on the road. Their four-year odyssey takes them from Podunk pool halls to slick urban billiard rooms across America, as they manage one night to take down as much as $30,000, only to lose so much the next night that they lack gas money to get home. With every stop, the action gets hotter, the calls get closer, and Delicious's prowess with a cue stick becomes known more and more widely. Ultimately, Delicious sheds his cover once and for all and becomes professional pool's biggest sensation since Minnesota Fats. In a book sure to appeal to fans of Bringing Down the House and Positively Fifth Street, Wertheim evokes a subculture full of nefarious but loveable characters and illuminates America's fascination with games and gambling. He also paints a lasting portrait of an insanely talented and magnetic hustler, who is literally larger than life.

McGoorty

Author: Robert Byrne
Publisher: Broadway Books
ISBN: 0767918118
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
The Broadway Books Library of Larceny Luc Sante, General Editor McGoorty is master billiards writer Robert Byrne’s racy account of the life of Danny McGoorty, a billiards champion of that bygone era when cue artists were often scam artists and pool rooms were held to be dens of iniquity. Hustler and hobo, womanizer and fashion plate, McGoorty was at once eyewitness to Capone’s Chicago and the feats of greats like Willie Hoppe and Willie Mosconi. In an all-American voice at once sarcastic, profane, humorous, and chock full of colorful lingo, he relates his colorful and seedy life and times with a unique style and brio.

Pool Wars

Author: Jay Helfert
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781475925920
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
"Jay's recollection of pool stories exceeds any that I've ever heard. His exactness in recalling events as they actually happened is amazing. There are few as qualified to write about pool action as Jay. He has always been right on the money with everything he has accomplished and this book isn't any different." -World 9-Ball Champion Billy Incardona "I've known Jay since the 60's. Although he loved to compete, he became more respected as a great game maker and money winner who helped out many a pool player when down on their luck." -World All Around Champion Danny Diliberto "Jay is the 'go to' man in pool. He is a living historian and a source for all pool info. As an accomplished player himself, he evolved into every aspect of the sport. He has given sage advice to up-and-coming players as well as champions. Jay is a valued member of the pool community who gets a nod and a smile from all who know him." -Pat Fleming, ACCU-Stats Video Productions

Byrne's Book of Great Pool Stories

Author: Robert Byrne
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Thirty-one stories on pool and billiards written over the past 150 years. The authors range from Pushkin to Vachss, the stories from Wallace Stegner's The Blue-Winged Teal, on competition between a father and a son, to Bill Pronzini's science fiction story, The Hungarian Cinch.

Hustler Days

Author: R. A. Dyer
Publisher: Lyons Press
ISBN: 9781592286461
Category : Billiard players
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A rollicking portrait of the kings of the cues

Road Player

Author: Jerry Forsyth
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781887956260
Category : Billiard players
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Book Description
Road Player: The Danny Diliberto Story. This new book by Jerry Forsyth, Pool & Billiards Magazine's premier writer, was just released at the Derby City (pool and billiards) Tournament on January 6th, 2006 and was an instant smash. Published by Bebob Publishing, it is a lifetime of stories from the vibrant memory of Danny Diliberto, one of Accu-Stat Video's most popular commentators. Beginning with the Hustler's Tournaments in Johnston City, Diliberto was one of the fabled road players. He excelled in four sports: baseball, bowling, boxing, and pool. Boxing was his first love, but his own hands could not stand the power of his blows. Pool gave him his greatest fame and that's what this book is about. Any devotee of the game will be fascinated with this look into the immediate past of pool and billiards. From Las Vegas to Hollywood to the smallest towns on the most distant highways, this is the life of the roadman, a gambler's tale in his own words. A great book!

The Other Side of the Road

Author: Alf Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780962891519
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description

The Color of Money

Author: Walter Tevis
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795342942
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
A legendary pool hustler tries to make a comeback in the novel that inspired the Martin Scorsese film: “A great read, entertainment of a high order” (Los Angeles Times). Fast Eddie Felson was the best in the country. Then he walked out on his talent. He ran a poolroom for the next twenty years, got married, and watched pool games on television. One evening he watches a pool player who reminds him of his old rival, Minnesota Fats, and it sparks something in him. Feeling a sudden grief at the loss of his old self and his old life, he leaves behind his business—and his marriage—and finds Fats, now retired in the Florida Keys. Now the pair is about to embark on a tour of the country together. Eddie hopes to recapture his glory days, but the journey will come with a price . . . The author of the classic The Hustler, which also features Fast Eddie Felson, “is unequaled when it comes to creating and sustaining the tension of a high stakes game. Even readers who have never lifted a cue will be captivated” (Publishers Weekly). “Tevis writes about pool with power and poetry and tension. From the opening scene of this fine book, the reunion between Eddie and Fats twenty years after, the staccato beat of the prose and finely drawn characters grab the reader and don’t let go. You don’t have to like pool to like this book, to appreciate its sense of living on the edge.” —The Washington Post

The Hustler

Author: Walter Tevis
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795342985
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 173

Book Description
“If Hemingway had the passion for pool that he had for bullfighting, his hero might have been Eddie Felson” (Time). The novel that inspired the classic film starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, The Hustler tells the story of Fast Eddie Felson, a young pool player who hustles suckers in small towns, looking for stake money so he can reach his goal: a marathon match in Chicago against Minnesota Fats. An exploration of guts, stamina, and character, and of the difference between winners and losers, this tense, gritty tale is “a wonderful hymn to the last true era when men of substance played pool with a vengeance” (Time Out).