Cue Music, ‘Hustler’ Is in Town

I hate to snitch, but it’s my civic duty to tell you there’s a hustler in our midst. As a matter of fact, it’s “The Hustler.”

You remember the movie by that name years ago? You remember the fat guy with the pool cue played by Jackie Gleason? They called him “Minnesota Fats” in the movie, but the real character it was based on had only been through Minnesota. His real handle was “New York Fats.” He was born and raised in Washington Heights in Manhattan. They changed the name to keep him from suing.

Actually, you don’t have to keep your hand on your wallet or sleep with your poke under your pillow or steer clear of the pool halls. Fatty has long since been out of stroke. You’ll play hob getting his age out of him, but it’s well past the three score and 10 the Bible allots.

But, in his day, he was a beaut. The things Fats could do with a pool cue were works of art. He could put a cue ball in your ear as well as a corner pocket if you wanted. He did with a pool cue what Babe Ruth did with a bat, Red Grange with a football, Magic Johnson with a basketball, or Ben Hogan with a two-wood.

He used to tour the country, looking for the local billiard celebrities. He’d arrive in town off a freight, a bus or an asthmatic sedan full of pool sticks. In some cases, the town would have been better off with a visit from Jesse James.

There would be this silhouette filling up the pool hall door. Fats went way up in the high 200s in his heyday, but his stroke was as smooth as corn silk and as deadly as an adder’s.

He was born Rudolf Wunderone. He came from a long line of working people. His father was a building superintendent, which means he had a hammer or a broom in his hand most of the time. But son Rudolf had cue chalk and the eight-ball in his as soon as he was tall enough to see over a pool table.

He likes to brag he never worked a day in his life. But it depends on your definition of work. Some people would consider circling the globe and making a fine living with nothing but a stick and a head full of larceny as difficult as hauling hods.

Fatty didn’t just look for “marks.” He played the best. Some of the crowned heads of Europe caught his act. A lot of guys with Lord and Sir and Baron in front of their names lost money to him.

He never had a sponsor. He played for his own money. There were, of course, the occasional burned bettors who felt they had been snookered and might resort to mayhem or even homicide, but Fatty had all his teeth and ears.

Fatty kept moving. Pool hustlers, like riverboat gamblers or golf course pirates, like to remain as anonymous as possible. But Fatty’s tonnage gave him away. He was as difficult not to notice in town as the Queen Mary.

Fatty objected to the word hustler. He took the position that the victim should be honored. It was like giving up a homer to Ruth, getting knocked down by Jack Dempsey.

“I let anybody play for anything,” he said when I caught up with him the other day at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, the pool and card casino where he’s heading up the sixth annual Open and Invitational Nine-Ball tournament this week.

Tournaments like this are a tribute to the old-line legends like Fatty Wunderone--and Willie Mosconi and Ralph Greenleaf. The guys who made the game romantic and fodder for films, who lifted the game out of its back-alley and disreputable image in the days when “pool hall” had the same connotation as “gambling den” or “opium parlor.”

“I never played nobody for money they didn’t insist on putting up,” says Fats. “I didn’t have no gun.”

He didn’t need one. The pool cue was all the firepower he needed. He made more money with a pool cue than Al Capone did with a machine gun.

“I knew every gangster who ever lived,” boasts Fatty, who speaks in the high hyperbole of a man who made his living by out-psyching the world as he racked them up. “Pretty Boy Floyd, Capone, Baby Face Nelson. . . .

“I never beat a man didn’t ask for it. I beat everybody living in cards, pool, dice. I spoke five languages. I could beat you in five languages. I traveled all the five continents. I stayed in villas. I played four moves ahead of everybody. I was the boss.

“Golf? I never wanted no golf. That’s work. If I wanted work, I’d get a lunch pail and a hard hat and join the union. We didn’t have no union. I never had no work in my life. I took care of business.

“I ironed them out. I liked to play the good players. I didn’t like to play no lambs. Oh, I would if they insisted. I’d give them seven, eight, nine balls. They knew who I was. I liked to play the guys thought they were the best in their states. I ironed them out.”

I first met Fatty when he was in a kind of temporary retirement 20 years ago or more. He was living in Dowell, Ill., with a wife, 27 cats and some dogs and birds.

I was there to cover the Hambletonian trotting race in nearby Du Quoin. Fatty cornered me in a booth at the St. Nicholas hotel. The movie, “The Hustler,” had just come out. Fatty was livid.

“Them bastids!” he said. “Them Hollywood bastids! They took my life and they made it into a moving picture! I’mna sue them bastids for every penny they made!”

I sighed. “Fatty,” I told him, “MGM has 1,200 of the best lawyers in the world. They could get the Boston Strangler community service. You go into court against them with a lawyer from Dowell and they’ll wind up owning your cats. Don’t fight ‘em. Join ‘em! Cash in on it! Tell ‘em you’re Minnesota Fats. Exploit it. That’s the name of the game now. The only ones who win suits are lawyers.”

It was the best advice I ever gave anyone. The next year, I went back to Du Quoin for the race. Fatty showed up at the door. He was driving one of those block-long Cadillacs, gold-colored, with the fins on the back. He was dressed in a silk shirt, two-toned shoes and elegant tan tailored slacks.

“Hey, Murray!” he said, spotting me and opening up his car trunk. “Look!” He showed me pool cues, balls, racks--and big tear sheets proclaiming, “See the original Minnesota Fats in exhibition!”

“I decided to get in,” he announced. “I’m the greatest pool player there ever was! I’m entitled!”

He never gave me credit. I should have sued. But I joined him instead. After all he was the greatest pool hustler there ever was. In five languages.

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