Mastering the Game of 8 Ball and a Brothers Legacy

My Uncle Ray, my dad's brother, was a really nice guy.

When I was collecting pictures for this story, I reached out to my cousins, Liz and Maryann to find a few to add to this post. During that exchange, Maryann shared that she used to set up her Barbie house and cottage on my uncle's billiards (pool) table, where he would have been playing the game of 8 ball. Maryann mentioned the table's green felt was the grass for her house. As you will read below, as important as billiards was to my uncle, family was more important. Below is the 4th story in my dad's series of posts. At some point, I will need to give them their own category on the website. If this is your first time reading my dad's stories, you can catch up on the first one, Family Storytelling Tradition With Papa Fiore. If you want to keep up with the stories as well as my Sensory Experience reviews, please subscribe here.

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Brother Ray

My Uncle Ray, playing billiards at a local pool hall.

There is an old saying that rings true now and forever. "You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives".

I was lucky to have a brother who had my back his entire life. Ray passed away a couple of years ago, but he remains alive in the hearts and minds of myself and his two daughters Liz and Maryann. Ray's last couple of years were tough and the devotion and dedication of Liz and Maryann gave him the strength to hold on as long as he could.

I would like to pay homage to my brother in this the fourth installment of my writings.

I am 4 1/2 years older than Ray. This is not an approximation but as real as it gets. My birthday is April 1 and Ray's birthday was September 30... 6 months to the day.

Ray (left) and my dad, Tony as kids.

When Ray was 14, he took an interest in pool. He watched it on television and marveled at the skill of the players. At 16 years old he started going to the pool hall at the corner of Richmond Avenue and Richmond Terrace. My parents weren't thrilled with the idea since the characters that hung around there had questionable backgrounds.

Mom and Dad came up with an idea. Why not give Ray a pool table as a Christmas present. A nice idea but it wasn't cheap since a regulation pool table cost about $800... a lot of money back then.

It seemed important enough to make such a sacrifice, and they wound up buying an old fashion pool table with tunnels, not a net. The sound of pool balls rolling through the tunnels could be heard from the basement where it was placed throughout the house.

Also, the idea of separating Ray from his questionable friends wasn't working since they found a new pool hall at 252 Van Pelt Avenue... the home of Lou and Flo Fiore.

Game of 8 Ball

Handwritten story from the first of 6 pages that my dad sent to me.

Ray loved the pool table, and he would play from early morning to late night. He became good enough to enter tournaments and win his share. Ray became well known in Staten Island pool circles and he got to a point where he could run 10, 15, 20, 25 balls in a row. Few players wanted to play against Ray so he started to go to bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn and he became a skilled 8 ball player for $5 to $10 a game.

The game of 8 ball involves hitting the white cue ball into a rack of 15 balls. Of the 15 balls set up in a rack eight are solids (1 to 7) and the others are stripes (9 to 15). Players must pocket all balls in their designated group (solids or stripes) before pocketing the 8 ball in a designated pocket to win. When Ray aimed the cue ball at the rack he almost always got either a stripe or solid ball in the pocket. Then he methodically ran the other balls and then made the 8 ball. Ray became so good at 8 ball that few wanted to challenge him.

Until he met "Sailor Bill".

Sailor Bill

My Uncle Ray playing billiards.

Sailor Bill was sitting at a Brooklyn bar one day watching Ray polish off one player after another. Bill was a retired Navy man who was about 70 when 18-year-old Ray Fiore met him. He approached Ray at the Brooklyn bar and said "I would like to challenge you." Ray said "I don't want to take your money old man." Sailor Bill said "I'll take that chance. How much do you want to play for?" Ray said "One game for $5 dollars." Sailor Bill said, "Come on if its only one game lets play for $20." Ray said "If you insist." Ray said... "You can break".

The old sailor studied the board picked out a pool stick and then proceeded to clear the table in a couple of minutes. Ray didn't know what hit him. After two rematches Ray was out $60 without taking a shot.

They sat at the bar and Bill bought Ray a drink. He said "Ray you have a lot of potential. I can teach you a lot if you are interested." Ray said sure and for the next couple of months Sailor Bill was a frequent visitor to the Fiore house. Where Ray was able to run 25 balls in a row, Sailor Bill could run 100. He was right out of the movie with Jackie Gleason playing Minnesota Fats.

Ray just playing around.

Sailor Bill told Ray he saw the pool table in geometric terms, triangles, rectangles and squares and he knew where the cue ball was going to land 5 shots from now.

After Sailor Bills lessons, Ray became better than ever. Throughout his life he never stopped playing pool and won many more games than he lost.

The Final Hustle

At Ray's funeral I gave a eulogy which was about one of Ray's last pool games.

Tony (left) and Ray as adults, January 2014

It was great that at the end of our work careers we wound up at the same

company... MarketSource Corporation in Cranbury, New Jersey. We had a Christmas luncheon and after it was over Ray asked a few of us to join him at this new restaurant in Cranbury that had a pool table. So about 6 of us joined Ray at this place and we sat at a table having drinks and watching this hot shot named Mikey polish off one player after another in 8 ball. So Ray approaches Mikey and says wanna play. Mikey says, "I don't want to take your money old man". Ray says no problem... How much you want to play for?" "How about $20... You can break". I'm thinking bad move Mikey.

Five games later, Mikey is out $100 and he has taken only a few shots. He can't believe what happened to him. Then I look over and in the corner of the bar Mikey and Ray are talking intently.

Then I see Ray hand over the $100 he just won back to Mikey... who leaves the place.

As Ray returns to our table, we ask him why he gave Mikey his money back. Ray says Mikey told him he has a couple of young kids and the money was for Christmas toys.

Then a bar patron who heard Ray's story chimes in... "You got to be kidding... Is that what he told you". Ray said yes and he even gave him $20 of his own money.

The bar patron says... well Mikey is not married and has no kids. In fact, he is a big playboy.

Ray's smile turns into a laugh. "Well, I guess the hustler got hustled".

That was Ray... as kind a person out there. A great brother, husband, father and grandfather.

I am so lucky to have him as a brother.