Snow Day at the Dugout

Snow Day at the Dugout

I always enjoyed a snow day, a day when the town cancelled school because of a winter storm, especially when the snow stopped before dawn and I could make some money shoveling snow off driveways and sidewalks. Those were the days before electronic hobbies and other such pursuits; the internet did not exist and as bad as television is today, it was but an empty shell back then. I participated in all of the available indoor and outdoor sports of the day. Yet I also appreciated what the extra dollars in my pockets provided me: the mad money, the free cash, to indulge myself in the great game of pinball, either at Marie’s Diner or at Chef’s over in the north end of town.

After leaving the Bowers Elementary School, I attended the new Illing Junior High School, and in February of 1963, while I was in the seventh grade, I turned 13 years old. One Saturday soon after, following a long afternoon spent tobogganing on the hill at Center Springs, a friend brought me to the pool hall located in the center of town, the ‘Red Sox Dugout’, or just the ‘Dugout’ for short. We walked up the path to Friendly’s Ice Cream on Main Street and followed Main up the hill and across Center Street to an alley by the south side of the large building that sat on the corner of the busy intersection. A set of well-worn concrete stairs led down from the snow-filled alleyway off Main St to a cellar below the Center Restaurant. I was nervous as we walked down the steps and entered through the large green door on the right.

My first impressions were of darkness and noise; my eyes were accustomed to the brightness of the snow outside and a loud cacophony grated against my ears. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the place packed full of teenagers and adults spread out among eight pool tables that sat between the cement pillars of the basement. Two lights with large green metal shades hung low over each table. Groups of people were clustered around the tables playing pool as others stood nearby and watched the action; some sat on stools set out near the walls. The atmosphere was loud and mesmerizing, almost hypnotic.

I did not know it at the time, but after that first visit, my life changed forever.
 
I became a regular player at the Dugout and took to the game of pool naturally, and my progress was rapid. Soon I was joining the other Dugout habitués in the most time honored of pool pastimes, gambling. As far as I was concerned, gambling provided me with many early lessons into the nature of life. I learned quickly that gambling with other players over an outcome controlled by the players that was played on a shared field is, in all reality, a business deal, and that you must negotiate and interact with people to strike what you believe are the best terms. A person must learn to navigate the waters of fear and uncertainty, read other people’s minds, and trust their own judgment and ability. You learn to stand your ground as others try to intimidate you. On some days you can’t do anything right, on others you play far above your average ability. Of course, like anything else in life that people do for enjoyment, a dark-side leads to a myriad of problems and personal and family torment. But such is the nature of all things that people choose to pursue in the course of their life, including life in the corporate world of business and capitalism.
 
No one but a fool would compete in any contest that one could never win, and so it was at the Dugout. People formed camps and played with others of the same ability. This meant that everyone had the opportunity to feel the thrill of winning and experience a good day at the tables at one time or another. As a person’s play improved, people within a group became reluctant to play with a more talented shooter, so the improved player found themselves forced to seek out those camps with other players of the same ability. And so it went, like the tribe or the pack (or the corporate world for that matter), your position was dependent on talent, ego, and drive.
 
Sometimes we played straight pool for money, but not often. A lesser player did not have much chance over the length of time it took to sink 125 balls. Occasionally a spot was agreed on, say of 25 balls. This meant that one person would play to 100 and the better shooter would need to sink 125 first to win the wager.
 
More often than not we played games that offered the lesser player a greater chance of winning. One such game goes by the name of Pill Pool. A small plastic bottle held 15 ‘pills’, small half-round pieces with a number from 1 to 15 etched onto the flat-side. The number correlated to the numbers on a full rack of 15 object balls.
 
A good game of Pill Pool consisted of five or six players and we often played for 50 cents a game. Every player drew a pill whose number now became the number of the ball they needed to sink to win. Everyone picked their own spot on the rail and put their pill on the table under a cushion with the number facing down. After the order of play was determined, the balls were racked and the first shooter broke them as hard as he could. If a ball went in the shooter continued, if not, the next player went. From the break on, the shooter attacked the balls in numerical order, 1 through 15. You could sink a ball with a combination shot and continue shooting as long as the next numbered ball was the first hit. If a shooter pocketed your ball, you had to announce it and show your pill as you paid out 50 cents to the player that sank your ball. If you sank your own numbered ball in the correct order, you turned your pill up on the table to show the number and everyone left with a pill paid you 50 cents, and the game was over. Everyone had to show their pill at the end of the game, if it was determined that your ball had been sunk and you did not announce it, you paid everyone 50 cents and went last the next game. A game continued until a player sank their own ball or nobody had a pill; then the balls were re-racked and the pills deposited in the bottle to be drawn anew. The last player shooting when a game ended went first the next game.
 
It was nine ball, however, that was the real money game. We did not play tournament nine ball games, but variations like 5-9 or 3-6-9. In 5-9, the 5 ball was also a money ball and the stakes were usually dollar-deuce, a dollar for the 5 and two dollars for the 9 ball. A diamond-shaped rack held the balls, with the 9 ball in the center and the 5 ball at the bottom of the rack.
 
We typically played with four people. The shooter broke the balls and if a ball went into a pocket, they continued to shoot. From then on, the play was in numerical order of the balls. The game was over when the only ball left on the table was the 9 ball and a player then made the shot to sink it. Before then, if a player made a 9 ball by a legal combination and other balls remained on the table, the 9 ball returned to the head spot and counted for the person sinking it. For example, suppose the shooter sank the 9 ball on the break. The 9 ball went to the head spot and the play continued, and every player in the game owed the shooter who sank the 9 ball two dollars. The same was true for the 5 ball, if a player made a 5 ball and a ball with a number greater than 5 remained on the table, the 5 ball went to the head spot and counted for the shooter. When the game was over, everyone settled up.
 
Occasionally I would have a magic rack. I would sink the 5 and 9 balls on the break; these were then re-spotted on the table. Then I would sink the 5 ball in correct order, drop the 9 ball in a combination (that was then re-spotted on the table), and finally sink the lone 9 ball that remained at the end. This added up to three 9 balls at two dollars apiece and two 5 balls at a dollar apiece, and every player in the game paid me 8 dollars each. The game of 3-6-9 was basically the same game except that the 3 and 6 balls were the additional money balls, and the stakes were typically dollar-deuce-three.
 
On some days, it was the other players that had the magic racks. That is the nature of wagering. As Walter Tevis noted in his fine novel ‘The Hustler’, there are a lot of percentage players that have to work for a living.

In all of those teenage years when I played pool at the Dugout, nothing was as exciting as a snow day when a winter storm cancelled school, especially if I made some money shoveling driveways. I would awake hours before dawn to ply the trade in areas near home and in the surrounding neighborhoods. After three or four hours of hard work, I would trudge across town to the pool hall and descend the well-sanded steps to enter through the large green door of the Dugout. I had forgotten pinball; it was a child’s game. There I would find my comrades in arms, the other hard working school kids who enjoyed the excitement present in the great game of pool when a small wager was part of the proposition. All the adults were usually working, so my school day friends packed the Dugout full, all flush with cash from shoveling driveways, enjoying sodas, forming into groups, and talking excitedly.

The noise level was high and an electric buzz seemed to flow through the cellar on those special days as we all celebrated our freedom from school and enjoyed the fruit of our hard work pursuing the one ultimate truth of nine ball: if someone wants your money, they have to put their own at risk to get it. What could be simpler.

When I look back at those years, I can’t help but think of today’s youth, insular and aloof, playing computer games, or watching TV in their bedrooms as fearful parents mistrust everything in the outside world. How sad and disappointing this situation seems to me, what recollections will these kids have of their childhood and young adult years. 
 
Of all the special memories gathered during my teenage years in Manchester, the ones that endure from those snow days at the Dugout are some of my fondest.
 
    

Laudizen King
March 2009