All Things Must Pass (OT)

[Comments have been added.]

Believe it or not, this game used to be one of the most popular and closely-followed sports in the United States. The game is called three-cushion billiards or three-cushion carom—this link is to the 2019 European Championships in Brandenburg, Germany. (For extra culture points you could listen to the Brandenburg Concertos as you watch.) In the early 1920s, there were 5,000 three-cushion billiard parlors in New York City alone. Today, I doubt there are that many pool halls in all of North America. The sports page of the New York Times averaged six articles about baseball, during the season, and five about billiards. The sport's top star, Willie Hoppe, was a national celebrity and earned only a little less in 1924 than Babe Ruth.

Willie Hoppe in 1923

Today three-cushion is all but extinct in North America. Even many pool players don't know it exists. As you might notice if you click on the link, the table has no pockets. The basic object is to carom off one ball, then go at least three rails and hit the other ball. It's exceedingly difficult; averaging 1.5 points per turn is world-class play. Like one-pocket, it's a connoisseur's game. In this match, reigning champion Marco "The Italian Gentleman" Zanetti achieves a 16-point run, which is sensational. It ends when he whiffs by a hairsbreadth.

By the way, a "billiard" is when you deliberately carom the cue ball off one ball in order to hit another. This still happens occasionally in modern pool and snooker, though even when it does it is seldom called a billiard by the announcers.

Tower
Another video recommendation: If you're a person of a certain age, and maybe even if you're not, you might enjoy All Things Must Pass, a documentary about Russ Solomon (d. 2018) and the rise and fall of Tower Records. Much more interesting and involving than I thought it would be. We're certainly seeing "creative destruction"* in lots of American businesses these days, and Tower (although the Japanese stores still survive today) is a vivid example of it.

Mike

*Sometimes just a euphemism for destruction.

Book o' the Week

In Search of Elsewhere: Unseen Images by Steve McCurry. [On Special Limited Time Sale today, $25.60 marked down from $70.] The two Steve McCurry books I own—Looking East and The Unguarded Moment—are oversized (but not too oversized) and have some of the very best color photographic reproduction I've seen. I hope this will be the same, although it has a different publisher. Steve McCurry, although his career is not without blemishes, is a superb and accomplished photographer whose work is a joy to own and revisit. Note that he's a "visual storyteller," not a photojournalist.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Nico (partial comment): "In the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) 'driebanden' is regarded the most prestigious form of cue sport. Snooker’s popularity is more recent, maybe due to the rollout of cable television in the seventies (previous century), which gave people access to the BBC."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Yes indeed-I-do recall '3-cushion' billiards! As a young person I regularly visited a pool hall that had two full-sized 9-foot traditional billiard tables. That was a big investment in space for Mario! (The owner of the joint.) Pocket tables were overwhelmingly more popular. But the carom tables were usually in use, mostly by a group of 'old-timers' (they were probably in their '50s 😂) who usually spent countless hours hunched over these 'strange' tables, mostly with their own cues.

"So one cold Saturday afternoon I just watched them play and ultimately befriended one tall fellow (Bud) who not only explained the carom games to me but encouraged me to begin playing 3-cushion. At the very least, he claimed, it would be excellent training for the straight pool game I loved. Boy, was he right! You can't be a banger in any carom game. Every aspect—cue strike, rotation, counter-rotations, etc.—must be anticipated. But you gradually develop enough intuition to not get a headache...and actually make a few points! Somewhat analogous to large-format photography, in fact.

"Bud, by the way, was no schmo as it turns out. He introduced me to Steve ('Miz') Mizerak one day, who I met again many years later. Bud was one of the in-crowd for pool players!

Mike replies: Cool that you've met Miz. I clicked on a 3-cushion tourney video one day and was surprised to see Efren competing along with all the unfamiliar faces. No doubt one of the reasons why he is considered such a "magician" in pool for his multi-cushion shots.

hugh crawford: "I grew up in central California when the Tower stores were just starting out. There was also a Tower Pants and Tower Guns in Sacramento. I remember when The Gap was a single store, they sold records and tapes plus Levi’s factory seconds that had bleach spots which made them un-sellable. The Gap was very close to the Columbus and Bay Tower Records store in San Francisco so the Gap decided to get out of the music business."

Jayanand Govindaraj: "Even in billiards, which is played with three balls, and is what I play 3–4 days a week, what you call a 'billiard' is universally called a cannon—because the cue ball cannons off the object ball to hit the third one."

Mike replies: I'm impressed that you're a player. Very cool. But I thought "cannon" meant one ball going into a group of balls? That seems to be how it's used in snooker. I don't know. In any event, I think cannon is a British-derived term. Only very seldomly do you hear it on this side of the pond.

Pak-Ming Wan: "Thanks for sharing that video to remind me about carom billiards! I vaguely remember seeing one of those tables when I first came to France and I was just shocked that you could make an interesting game out of it. I didn't think to look for a video of someone playing it."

Comments

[Nico]

In the Low Countries (Belgium & The Netherlands) “driebanden” is regarded the most prestigious form of cue sport. Snooker’s popularity is more recent. Maybe due to the rollout of cable television in the seventies (previous century), which gave people access to the BBC.

Btw: another - rather different - Belgian and Dutch obsession is cyclo-cross. The world championships will take place this week-end in Fayetteville, Arkansas (ladies tomorrow, gentlemen Sunday). Very photogenic!

[Grant]

At least it lives on in the immortal words of Professor Harold Hill:

"Why sure I'm a billiard player,
certainly mighty proud, I say I'm always mighty proud to say it!
I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden. Help you cultivate horse sense and a cool head and a keen eye.
Did ya ever take and try to give an iron-clad leave to yourself from a three-rail billiard shot?
But just as I say it takes judgement, brains, and maturity to score In a baulk line game,
I say that any boob can take and shove a ball in a pocket."

[Mark Rouleau]

One of the subtly funny parts of the musical "The Music Man" is that Harold Hill works to generate fake outrage over the fact that the billiard hall has a pool table that has *pockets*!

Hill admits to being a billiard player ("helps you cultivate horse sense, and a cool head, and a keen eye" but the pockets "...mark the difference between a gentleman and a bum, with a capital B and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!"

[c.d.embrey]

Where have all the pool halls gone? Many SoCal bars used to have 6-8 tables—bowling alleys had pool rooms with lots of tables. Now pool tables are as hard to find as piano bars.

At one time Tower Records, on the Sunset Strip, was a big deal. Then one day they were gone without warning.

Time marches on.

[s.wolters]

From Wikipedia:
The object of the game is to carom the cue ball off both object balls and contact the rail cushions at least three times before the last object ball. A point is scored for each successful carom. In most shots the cue ball hits the object balls one time each, although hitting them any number of times is allowed as long as both are hit. The contacts between the cue ball and the cushions may happen before and/or after hitting the first object ball. The cue ball does not have to contact three different cushions as long as it has been in contact at least three times in total.

So that's easier than the way you describe it and more fun to watch. It is still very difficult though. Most people used to learn it in local pubs and restaurants that had a billiard table. Starting with libre, where you don't have to use any cushion at all.