Perception of pre war baseball players vs other sports

[steve B]

Originally Posted by nwobhm

I wasn’t thinking pampered…. More like sterile.

Ever see a pool hustler work? They play with house cues on bad tables and still hustle well. Point being… great players adapt to their environment.

Modern players have adapted to their sterile environment. Not a good thing IMHO.

Yes, I sure have. Not someone big time though.

One of the places I hung out at in college was part arcade part pool hall. The pool guys always came across as a bit tough, and money was bet for sure.

My friend and I played occasionally. The guys would always try to get us to play for small stakes, but eventually accepted that we knew the drill and weren't up for losing money.

Until one night one of them asked for a free game, it was slow and he wanted practice against someone other than the other good players.
Ok, but only on my favorite table....
First ball I got in followed a very crooked path and he had a wtf expression.
Oh yeah, my favorite table was the worst one I'd ever played on. Multiple major cracks under the felt, and one section angled down to the hole. I loved it because I was pretty bad at pool, but liked the really weird way that one played.
His friends gave him a hard time for a couple weeks over losing to one of the worst pool players they'd seen.