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Posts Tagged ‘Willie Mosconi’

Talk about the best pool players in history and the name William Joseph Mosconi best known as Willie Mosconi or “Mr. Pocket Billiards” will always be mentioned. The American cue artist from Philadelphia was among the first to be inducted in the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame. Mosconi popularized pool by setting many records. He won the World Straight Pool Championships for fifteen times. He was also one of the best Trick Shot Performer and holds the world record during a straight pool exhibition for running 526 consecutive balls without a miss and up to this day no one has beaten it.

Mosconi was already straight pool champion at the age of 11 in 1924 and was doing trick shot exhibitions most often. In 1968, Willie Mosconi received the honor as a Hall of Famer in Billiard Congress of America.

The Mosconi Cup that’s being held annually was founded in 1994, a year after his death. This event is in honor of him, it’s the annual competition between American and European Pool players and that has become popular more than ever.

(Photo via billiardsforum.info)

Often we heard from our best professional pool players the name Willie Mosconi, who dominated pool for decades, and publicly on television, and known by many Americans as the greatest, but there was once a mentor and superior of Mosconi that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Known for his alias as “The Aristocrat”, Ralph Greenleaf was widely considered the greatest pool player ever, and handsome to boot. Ralph Greenleaf was pool’s brightest star from the turn of the century through the Depression. Greenleaf and Willie Mosconi stand as the two greatest pool shooters in history. Like Rachmaninoff at the piano, Greenleaf used his massive hands with their long, tapering fingers to perform his calling marvelously.

When Mosconi was a boy, he toured with Greenleaf, who taught him exquisite positioning with the cue ball and built in him the competitive edge to win.

Some old-timers state that Ralph’s frequent bouts with liquor crippled the potential of his brilliant career and have believed to bring this pool giant to an early death in 1950 at the age of 50.