Do you know what a tush-hog is? When you hear the name “Daddy Warbucks,” do you picture Hubert Cokes rather than the bald guy from Annie? If someone says to you he has “the nuts,” do you realize he’s not talking about salty snacks?
If you answered “no” to these questions, then watching The Road Scholars is like attending your third cousin’s 50th high school reunion and sipping rum punch while no one offers you even ten seconds of attention. However, if you answered “yes,” then you’re likely going to bask in your front row seat to 70 minutes of war stories delivered by some of the most famous and fabulous pool hustlers of the 1960s and 1970s.
Filmed in 2008 at the annual Derby City Classic by pool photographer and historian Diana Hoppe, The Road Scholars originally consisted of eight hours of informal video interviews with 11 of the most well-known hustlers of the second half of the twentieth century. They were: Ronnie Allen, “Buffalo Danny” DiLiberto, Jimmy “The Philly Flash” Fusco, Freddy “The Beard” Bentivegna, Truman Hogue, Billy “Cardone” Incardona, Wade “Boom Boom” Crane, “Champagne” Eddie Kelly, Grady “The Professor” Mathews, “Hippie Jimmy” Reid, and Vernon Eliot. Ms. Hoppe then spent about two years editing the content down to 70 minutes for the DVD release in 2010.
For those expecting a movie or a documentary or anything even close to a narrated story, prepare to be broken. There’s nothing here for you. Without setup or introduction, except an opening slide that reads, “The finest professional pool players and hustlers known collectively as the Road Scholars,” Ms. Hoppe drops the viewer into a back room (at the Derby Classic), where a roundtable bull session is in progress and Mr. Incardona is holding center stage.
The sound production quality is average, the camera work rarely captures the whole 11-person posse on screen, and there is an absolute disregard from the attendees that this video recording may be watched by someone in the future. Yet, it’s this nonchalance, coupled with the obvious camaraderie among the men that produces such candid, honest, and ribald storytelling.
Some of the stories are more enjoyable (and easier to follow) than others. I loved hearing Mr. Incardona regale the group with his tale of Artie Bodendorfer playing one-handed pool in Vegas and outlasting all the other players so that he could break them down over a period of days. (In The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers, the Beard similarly describes Mr. Bodendorfer, saying he could “play for 2 or 3 days on coffee only…He would pee about once every 24 hours. Playing against him was so brutal that Artie had two people drop dead playing with him.”)
Mr. DiLeberto shares a great yarn about conning Pool Wars author Jay Helfert out of money with three-to-one odds by throwing a golf ball 130 yards. The Beard, ever the raconteur, recounts an incredible tale (that he also chronicles in The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers) of beating James “Texas Youngblood” Blunt out of $1600, only to have give the money back after Blunt’s stakehorse, Al Sherman, threatened the Beard with a 9mm automatic, thinking the Beard had gotten Blunt to dump the game, when in fact the Beard “beat him on the square.” The Beard also relates an inconceivable story about trying to dupe Archie “The Greek” Karras into thinking he was an eccentric billionaire. That clip is available to watch here.
Woofing aside, some of the best parts of The Road Scholars are the most intimate ones. For example, it’s a tender scene when the Professor inducts Mr. Kelly into the One Pocket Hall of Fame. After accepting the award gracefully, Mr. Kelly, who was the only attendee to have been inducted into the Billiard Congress Hall of Fame (2003), said that being “considered by many peers in the late ‘60s to be the best all around player…that meant more to me than all the trophies.” Or, when the Beard turns to Mr. Eliot and praises his character by saying how he let the Beard off the hook by not accepting his wager that he couldn’t make a particular trick shot. Of course, the single best line goes to the Professor, who offers to bring the roundtable to a close by offering “thanks to all the wonderful ladies and the great pool players. I’ve enjoyed all the matches and all the nights of love-making.”
Two of the attendees, Mr. Fusco and Mr. Reid, unfortunately do not receive on-camera time in the final 70 minutes. And, oddly, there is some unexpected footage at the very end of Larry Liscotti doing card tricks and of “Boston Shorty” Larry Johnson struggling to remember some of his accomplishments.
The Road Scholars is available to purchase on Amazon. She also just released this past November The Road Scholars 2: The Final Chapter, which includes never before seen footage of The Road Scholars, One Pocket Hall of Fame dinner, The Derby City Classic and The US Open.
For those (like myself) who did not grow up familiar with these legends of pool, I highly recommend also reading The Beard’s The “Encyclopedia” of Pool Hustlers. It provides backgrounds on all the attendees, includes many of the same stories shared on the DVD, and most important, brings the uninitiated into the wild world of pool hustling.
The Road Scholars ends with a slide indicating it is dedicated to “Vernon Eliot and all the players we lost.” It is a terribly sad irony that since the DVD’s release, the billiards world has now lost almost half of the original group of 11. We mourn not only the passing of Mr. Eliot, but also that of Mr. Allen, Mr. Bentivegna, Mr. Crane, and Mr. Mathews. Their stories need to be preserved and their impact on the sport needs to be told. Thank you Ms. Hoppe for helping to make that happen.
