Column: Behind the eight ball with Shoe

By Tim “Shoe” Sullivan

If there’s one thing I’ve never been called in my life, it’s a pool hustler. Minnesota Fats? Hell, more like Wisconsin Slim.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely no stranger to a pool table. The pool cue and I go back a long way.

My pool-shooting career goes back to when I was just a mere youth. My parents would take us up north to Minocqua for summer vacations. We stayed at Yelton’s Little Minocqua Resort, right on the lake. Their main lodge had a bumper pool table and a bar. When we weren’t fishing outside, we were playing bumper pool inside. Lots of it.

There was only one small problem. The table had a bunch of bumpers, some balls, and two pockets.

Nobody ever told us that the object was to hit the balls into those pockets. We thought the idea was to hit as many of those bumpers as possible. People would see us playing bumper pool at noon. When they’d walk by two hours later, we’d still be in our first game, and most of the balls would still be on the table.

We definitely got our money’s worth, and onlookers would merely shake their heads and give us crazy looks.

As I got older, playing pool was a must. Duck Shannon, Dave Nachman, and I would play pool all the time at Lakeside Bar in Point. Nubbs Wozniak and Stinky Mike were always up for a game of 9-ball at Buffy’s Lampoon. Joe’s Bar offered competition with Donny Bacher who told jokes during the entire game.

I would go to Graffiti’s and lose in pool to Donny Fix in about three minutes. How bad was I? Well, did you ever miss the whole rack on the opening break? Happened many times to the kid. Run the table?

Hell, I couldn’t run to get a pizza.

I thought I was pretty good at shooting pool until someone pointed out that you have to hit the white ball first. That changed everything.

It never mattered whether I had stripes or solids. None of them were gonna go in anyways. I would watch people playing pool at the Top Hat and just laugh. They would be sinking balls everywhere, and before ya knew it, the game was over and they had to put another quarter in to play again. How dumb. I liked to play pool by myself. I’d never make a shot and could play all day. It was like the pockets had a “Do not enter” sign on them.

I can remember shooting pool at Morey’s while listening to the Mama’s & Papa’s singing “Dedicated To The One I Love” on the jukebox. It was so relaxing and zero drama. I’ve “racked them up” at Fill’s Bar and Ma’s Backstreet Pub. I would lose to Dave Suchon at Romie’s Rendezvous. Took no effort at all. I always thought the object of every shot was to scratch.

One year, Skipps had a beautiful brand new billiards table. Awesome-looking felt. Everything you ever wanted in a pool table. Except for the holes. It didn’t have any pockets. That was my kind of table. I’d shoot on that table for hours but never knew when the game was done.

Racks meant nothing to me. Chalk? You were supposed to chalk your cue? I thought the chalk was to use for keeping score. Paul Newman never signed up to do a movie about my pool skills.

Bank shots? I thought that was when you took a little nip at the credit union.

Use a bridge? If the shot was that tough, I’d aim at something else.

In a bar, the game of pool was a great way to pick up chicks. I’d walk up to a girl and ask: “Hey, you wanna shoot some pool”? If she said “Yes!”, I’d point to the table and say: “Okay. There’s the table. Go play” (I wasn’t really good at picking up ladies).

As I said, no pool table ever came with directions. Do you think I know how to jenny, jam up, or jigger? Dream on, pal.

The bottom line is that I never won a game of pool in my life. And I’m proud of it. Doug’s Sports Pub has many pool tournaments. I wait until they’re all over and then set my root beer on the table and watch tv.

Oh, there was that one time when somehow I had one ball left. I took careful aim and sunk the white ball into the side pocket.

Right on cue.