Pool Hustler on the Road Again

How the mighty are fallen. In 1967, Boston Joey gave a pool exhibition in the Harvard Freshman Union for more than 100 Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates.

Admission was $1 and the room was packed and very silent. Joey had hustled around the country twice, playing bars and country pool rooms and then descending upon big city pool rooms for $100 nine ball action.

That night Boston Joey, completely blind in one eye (his left eye has been a glass one since the age of six months), and with no sleep for more than two days (he had been playing Cabiash and Barbouffe) stroked the balls in the hole on pure talent. In a straight pool game to 100 against "Honest. Jim" Looby of Quincy House, he ran close to three racks while having a hard time staying awake at the table.

Two months later found Boston Joey in New York at the Guys and Dolls pool room in Times Square. He began popping greenies, he got involved with a woman, and he persisted in playing in a crooked blackjack game. But he did play good pool. He beat Steve Mizerack two sessions of nine ball, one for $500 in New York and one for $300 in New Jersey. Mizerack's the current United States straight pool champion. And Joey?

Joey borrowed $500 from Chris the Cab Driver one dark snowy night in New York. He and the girl came to Boston, but she left him when the money was gone. Joey started to drift West- Springfield, Buffalo, Indianapolis- wherever there was pool action.

The pills, the women, the hard life has gotten to Boston Joey and he just cannot play like he used to. Joe Dimaggio, the pool hustler from New Jersey, was talking about him the other day- "I seem him in Indianapolis and he couldn't make a ball. It's a shame cause he used to be one hell of a pool player."