By Pierre Ratte
Yup, trouble, with a capital “T,” and that rhymes with “P,” and that stands for pool. This weekend Doghouse Billiards in Cotati hosted an 8-ball tournament. The winning team from the Redwood Empire BCA Division 1 league travels to Las Vegas in May for the American Cue Sports championship to compete with thousands of other players.
According to professor Harold Hill, time spent with a cue can be golden. Though he referred to play billiards, not pool, which in his opinion any “boob” can play. However, judging by Doghouse’ competitors jumping balls, hitting combinations, running the table on an 8-ball break and leaving devilish safeties, it certainly was not the case that any boob can play. No, the opposite is more true. Northern California has a robust pool scene—winter and summer, pun intended.
Fun facts: The game of pocket billiards started in France. Louis XI had the first table built in 1496. It was an indoor version of croquet, also a French game. Dubbed the “Sport of Kings” when embraced by French aristocrats in the 1600s, its popularity spread as billiard tables became standard fixtures in French cafés in the 1800s.
A billiard table can weigh up to 1,500 pounds. The surface is a special felt stretched over machined and polished slate held together in sections by wax. Slate is used because it is easy to machine and has dimensional stability.
Pool tables come in different sizes. A “bar-table,” typically coin-operated, is a 7-foot table, 39 x 78 inches; a standard recreational or home table is 8 feet, 44 x 88 inches; while a “tournament” table is 9 feet, 50 x 100 inches. Tournament billiards tables are also 9 feet, but billiard tables, properly carom billiards, do not have pockets.
Snooker tables are larger still. American snooker is played on a 10-foot table, and English snooker is played on a 12-foot table. To be a regulation table, length must be double width as measured from cushion edges.
The Music Man, a stage musical written by Meredith Willson, famously and quaintly saw pool as the first step on the road to depredation in “Ya Got Trouble,” sung by Robert Preston as Harold Hill. The Beatles covered another Music Man song, “Till There Was You,” in 1963. The cast of The Music Man included: Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Ron Howard, Buddy Hackett and Hermione Gingold. The movie was released in 1962 and grossed $15 million.
