Cue & Cushion

Balk is current nomenclature of two sports. Baseball pitchers make a false motion to throw (called a balk); opponents are allowed to advance one base. Not so in billiards. In high class championship play, lines on the green cloth tablebed are drawn parallel to and 18 inches from the cushions. When two of the object balls are driven into any of the eight spaces bounded by these lines and the rectangles of their intersection such balls are "in balk."

Famed championships are played at 18.2 balkline. This means only one carom (popularly called billiard) can be scored until one of the object balls is driven out of balk; on the second carom one object ball must cross the line.

Such restriction is set up because famed billiard players are too talented. Without balklines they cunningly collect the three balls near a cushion and "nurse" them endlessly . . . click click . . . click click . . . scoring indefinitely.

Time was when even famed players could not score thus monotonously. Cushions were made of wood or cloth stuffed with hair; balls caromed crazily. Tablebeds were wood; cues wood untipped. With these and cruder implements billiards was played for many centuries; references to its ancestry are found in Shakespeare and stories of the Crusades. About 100 years ago leather cue tips; stone table beds; and rubber cushions clustered to change the game. In 1854 one Michael Phelan contrived an improved cushion; became first U. S. champion. Many masters have succeeded him. Today great players are Edouard Horemans, Belgium; Eric Hagenlacher, Germany; Kinrey Matsuyama, Japan; Felix Grange, France; William Hoppe, Welker Cochran, Jacob Schaefer, U. S.

Last week in a hotel ballroom, Manhattan, the last two met around a green table to decide the championship of the world. So exact must be the equipment to match the skill of the contestants that the table was electrically heated to prohibit a stone cold surface* deadening the balls.

Schaefer, former champion, son of famed "Wizard" Jake Schaefer, one of the greatest experts of billiard history, led and increased his lead. Late in the match he saw Cochran score 196 points in a run; was not impressed. Schaefer is the only player alive who has run out a tournament match "from spot," not permitting his opponent (Hagenlacher, 1925) a turn at the table. Cochran was not unduly proud; once in championship play he ran 407 points. Neither played as well as he knows how. Cochran, stocky, abrupt, lost the world's championship to slim, catlike Schaefer, 1,500 points to 1,304.

*Tablebed is of slate.