Billiards Fun Facts

 

- Pool is one of the safest sports in the world.

- Tom Cruise did his own trick billiard shots for the 1986 film, The Color of Money, except for one in which he had to jump two balls to sink another. Director Martin Scorsese said he wanted to let Cruise learn the shot, but it would have taken two extra days of practice, which would have held up production and cost thousands of dollars. The shot was instead performed by professional billiards player Mike Sigel.

- Billiards was the first sport to have a world championship (1873).

- Before the invention of celluloid and other new-age plastics, billiard balls were made out of ivory. The elephants can thank their present existence on the invention of plastics. Because billiard balls had to be cut from the dead centre of a tusk, the average tusk yielded only 3 to 4 balls.

- Charles Goodyear – the inventor of vulcanized rubber, which revolutionized billiard cushions and countless other industries – died a virtual pauper. His company failed, he was imprisoned for debt, and he profited little from his breakthrough invention.

- Harvey Hendrickson probably made as much money as anyone with his “limited” skills at the billiard table. He actually toured the country and amazed audiences. Not with his ability to run racks or pocket balls, but with his freakishly unique ability to pick up and hold 15 billiard balls at once using one hand.

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