Three Finger Joe Was an Honest Hustler

Most of his life Three Finger Joe and a cue stick have been inseparable. He lost part of the index finger on his right hand working in a factory, so Joseph P. Medvidovich became, for purposes of recognition, Three Finger Joe. And he built a reputation.

He was a part of the pool hall scene in such diverse locations as Baltimore, Amarillo, Atlanta, Charlotte, San Francisco, Savannah and Anniston, Ala., which meant he was a traveling man who came in as a friendly stranger and got himself invited at the most propitious moment into a game of “nine ball,” his major field of accomplishment.

Three Finger Joe had perfect timing. He knew how to carry an opponent and never made it look contrived. It meant taking a beating or two in the side pocket and the wallet, too, to make everyone feel comfortable. When the pot became irresistible, he cleaned the table.

“A lot of times when you went to some spot you weren’t sure of, you checked the exits and the men’s room,” he said. “You always wanted to know if there was a men’s room window because, after you won a grand or $1,500, you might figure it was better to make a hurried escape rather than take the chance of getting mugged of what you just won when you got outside.”

So, what Joe was doing was beating the pool room fighters to the punch. “It was easier that way,” he said. “You could leave the cue stick, excuse yourself to go to the restroom and then go out the window. You’d be on your way while the players were looking to get even or plotting to rob you when you got back.”

Three Finger Joe was born in Clairton, Pa., and has lived in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Gastonia, N.C., and also in Murphy, N.C., where he moved for a spell after not only winning a dollar or two but ownership of the pool hall, too. In 1957, while in Baltimore, when the action hit a lull, he met a man who was a department head at the Bethlehem Steel Co.

Their friendship was forged, not in the mill, but at a pool establishment. Three Finger Joe was given a letter of introduction to the personnel director and wound up in a legitimate job. But he never lost his interest or the touch when there was a sporting proposition.

He played against some of the best, including the late Luther Lasiter, Titanic Thompson, Eddie Kelly, Johnny Irish, George Cook and Larry Sapia. When the movie-makers were putting together a film called “Florida Straits,” they sought out Three Finger Joe for a pool shooting role. Now he’s 76, recovered from a stroke and remembering when “I was a living legend in at least 40 states.”

One of his most unforgettable “hustles” was in Fayetteville, N.C., within a drum roll of Fort Bragg. “But I never took advantage of no soldiers,” he said. “I’m too patriotic. I made it a point to hang out in this one place where a guy was on a roll. I just barely beat a couple of other players in nine ball and eight ball.

“The guy who was putting everybody away thought I was in the Army, too. I let him think it. I came in a couple days later wearing Army surplus clothes. He wanted a game. But I kept delaying. I knew he had the itch. Finally, I told him I’d play when I was off duty.

“It took me a little time, because I wanted it to take a little time, but I cleaned him out. He thought he lost to an old soldier. Gee, I was never even in the Army but, you know, I was like Gen. Douglas MacArthur. I did return.”

Three Finger Joe was married and had seven children. A son Joel, who now owns Snookers, a pool hall in Steelton, Pa., remembers once when his father left home to buy a loaf of bread and returned, two days later, with “a brand new car and money busting out of his pockets.”

But that was the “take” from a card game. Alfie “Eggy” Creamer, who writes songs and handicaps horses, tells of when he was with Three Finger Joe in a pool emporium outside Baltimore. “We trounced a couple weightlifters,” Creamer recalled.