![]() ![]() "Ruth McGinnis Twice Defeats Ralph Greenleaf," wrote the Allentown, Pennsylvania. Other headlines also show that she didn't require an introduction. "Miss Ruth McGinnis Shows Top Form to Beat Lenhart," ran a headline the next day. The women in the audience clapped as she pocketed ten balls, one after the other, leaving Lenhart in the dust. In 1936, Recreation Academy in New Brunswick, New Jersey, put up a special grandstand, and a crowd gathered to watch McGinnis take on local legend Jack Lenhart. The program was called "Better Billiards" and the sponsor, the National Billiard Association of America, paid for McGinnis to visit well-established halls to give a brief talk about pool, do some trick shots, and then take on the local champion. She logged close to 28,000 miles a season touring the country as part of an industry movement to paint pool as wholesome, says Dyer. Women faced harassment and struggled to find mentors.īut McGinnis, a rare left-hander, found work shooting pool anyway. "In the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, and up until the ’50s, pool rooms were almost exclusively a male domain, associated with men behaving badly," says Dyer. Lower-end pool halls had become magnets for seediness, where unemployed men whiled hours away. McGinnis studied to become a physical education teacher, but when she graduated from Stroudsburg Teachers' College in 1932, the Great Depression was ravaging America. "To run a hundred balls is like the milestone for a straight pool player. "In addition to playing 'like a man.' which was a compliment in those days, she ran hundreds of balls," says Kenniston. National and world title-holder Mary Kenniston has met people over the years who knew McGinnis. "When was 10 or so she ran a 47," says Dyer, "and most pool players that can find their way around a pool table are never going to run a 47 in their entire lives, let alone at age 10, just to put that into context." If she sinks 14 balls in a row or "runs a 14," she can use the 15th to start into another rack and continue shooting. (Today, if you walk into an American bar with pool tables, patrons are likely playing 8-ball.) In straight pool, the player calls what ball she will try for-stripes or solids doesn't matter. McGinnis' game, popular in the 1930s, was straight pool, which is what Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason play in the iconic film The Hustler. You could find plenty of stories about Ruth McGinnis and other pool players in the New York Times." Mike Shamos of the Billiard Archive But during McGinnis' age this was not the case. "Now the sport is relegated to bars and play in leagues, but most prominent pool players nowadays-their names are not household words. "You have to understand that pool back in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s was in a very different space in this country than it is now," says pool historian and author R. That was just an average day at the tables for McGinnis, who triumphed in the male enclave of the pool room, earning her the nickname "The Queen of Billiards." Born in 1910, she started playing in her family's Honesdale, Pennsylvania, barbershop at 7 years old: her father kept two pool tables for waiting customers, and a soapbox for tiny Ruth to stand on. The manager teased that he should borrow a bowling ball from the alley next door and paint a big 8 on it, so the men stood a chance. ![]() McGinnis played a straightforward game, not chatting or joking with anyone as she played, the balls clacking cleanly as she cleared the table. The men tried to act nonchalant, but as they watched McGinnis dispatch their friends one after another, they shifted nervously from foot to foot. One January day in 1938, a slight, wide-eyed woman named Ruth McGinnis walked into the Arcadia, a pool hall in Washington, D.C, where six of the district’s most accomplished players waited to play her. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |