Throughout Jimmy’s illustrious career he has been around the game’s more colorful characters. Here are a few stories from his memory. More to come!
Luther Lassiter, Wimpy, to all that knew him personally. Early 1967, Our first meeting…John Miller (Popcorn) introduces me to Wimpy during a world class straight pool tournament being held at Charlie Milliken’s pool room in Norwalk, California. Ronnie (Fast Eddie) Allen from San Francisco was managing the joint, but my stories about Ronnie will come later. Unbelievable! Let me preface this by saying that I was at the tournament site early, a couple of hours before the scheduled 7pm. matches. When I arrived…
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Billy (Cornbread Red) Burge was, Without a doubt, one of the greatest gamblers, players, and characters of all time.
1969 – Heard through the grapevine there was more action at the Capital St. Mens Social Club in Oak Park, Michigan, than anywhere else on Earth. What an understatement that was! You couldn’t get anybody to watch if you were betting $1000 a game, that was considered a below average bet.In fact there were quite a few below average players betting $5,000 – $10,000 a game.
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Peter Lindhart, alias Peter Rabbit, The Rabbit, or just plain Rabbit to his friends…
That’s right if it walks like a rabbit, smiles like a rabbit, looks like a rabbit, but has smaller ears, stands 5’10″, weighs 200+, and carries a cue stick — It’s Peter Rabbit. Rabbit is without a doubt one of the funniest pool players of all time, he could tell you a fairly clean joke every minute for days. He always has a smile on his face and laughs all the time. Truly a delightful personality. My thoughts of Rabbit go something like this, ie; 1964, I’m living in West Palm Beach, Fl., I just beat Fats in an exhibition match at the Carefree Theater in West Palm. A couple of days later I’d heard a poolplayer by the name of Peter Rabbit beat Fats 5 games in a row of one pocket for $300 a game at the Congress Bowl in Miami…
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The Last Johnston City Tournament: 1972, Round-Robin, 9 Ball and 1 Pocket only.
Three weeks, you play everybody.Tournament eve; Minnesota Fats ( Rudolph Wanderone ) is speaking live on a midwest tv and radio broadcast, trying to help Paulie Jansco promote the tournament. Here is one of the things he said, and I quote ” Jimmy Reid is here from LA, and wants to play-any man from any land, for any amount he can count, anything he can bring, any game he can name.”
Three weeks later-finals night, there are 4 players left in the 9 ball and 4 players left in the 1 pocket…
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There is no argument about it, no doubt about it, Willie was the greatest 14.1 (straight pool) player of all time…
1964 at the University Bowl in Boca Raton, Fl., this is the first time I had the opportunity to see this legend – Willie Mosconi play. He was playing some local a 150 point exhibition match. Willie racked em up, called the head ball 2 rails in the side, kicked into the end rail and rebounded into the end ball which banked the head ball 2 rails into the side pocket – amazing…
Willie then proceeded to run 150 and out, the local player never got an inning, the crowd applauding and cheering convinced Willie to continue his run and Willie complied. He ran a total of 226 balls, the most amazing thing about this run was, Willie never shot a ball in either one of the behind the headstring corner pockets, it was absolutely beautiful to watch. Willie ran 226 balls in 4 pockets, the way he kept weaving around the balls was really something to behold, it reminded me of a professional ice skater doing a beautiful, smooth figure 8, he was oh so smoooooth…
Willie missed the 227th ball which was just a little off angle to the side pocket, the ball hit the outside point and bounced back toward…
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Danny Jones (Handsome Danny). 1970, Johnston City, Illinois, it’s the hustlers tournament. 3 weeks of straight pool, 9 ball and 1 pocket, double elimination and a final playoff between the winners of all 3 events to decide the all-around champion. It wasn’t called the hustlers tournament for nothing, there was card and pool action 24/7, or in this case 24/21. We had a $50 ring 10 ball game going on in the practice building on the back table. Danny Jones came in and was standing behind the next table,
just watching. I had just made some kind of miracle runout, well…Billy Johnson (Wade Crane) turned to Danny and asked him if he wanted to get in? The balls were racked and ready to be broken but I waited for Danny’s response. Danny replied; ” No I didn’t sleep at all last night. Billy…
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Ronnie (Fast Eddie) Allen: 1977, Joe Burns was holding his annual tournament in Dayton (Forest Park), Ohio. Walter Tevis; author of “The Hustler” and later, “The Color of Money” was in attendance, and being a writer fascinated with the gambling aspect of pool, seemingly had asked all of my peers who the best money player was and they referred him to me. I agreed to do a tape recorded interview with Mr. Tevis while playing chess in his suite at the Holiday Inn in Dayton, Ohio. Subsequently, Nov.77 Sports Illustrated published a 3 page article about me, which began as me being the best money player in the world, and ended with me being some kind of womanizer…Go figure. At one point during this interview, I became the interviewer instead of interviewee, I flat out asked Mr. Tevis who he based Fast Eddie Felson on… read more
INTRO – James Franklin Reid Jr., August 23, 1946 – 8lb. 13oz.. Jimmy Reid, alias – Hippy Jimmy. 1959… Winter in Gloucester Massachusetts, snowing, 12 years old, in the 7th. grade. Taking the school bus from my hometown of Magnolia to St. Ann’s Grammar School in Gloucester. Don’t want to go to school today, wanna play hooky and go to Nick’s Pool Room and Shoe Shine Parlor. Can’t wait to go back and shoot some pool, a lot of pool… After getting off the school bus I snuck away from the other kids and school.
It was cold and I had a couple of hours to kill until Nick opened. With a pretty good walk from St. Ann’s Grammar School to Nicks, I soon discovered three warm stops to kill time, the post office, city hall and library. All nice warm buildings with public rest rooms…Later on I had to change this routine, people at the post office, city hall and library started asking questions…
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