Luther Clement Lassiter Jr. (November 5, 1918 – October 25, 1988), nicknamed Wimpy, was an American
pool
Pool may refer to:
Bodies of water
* Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming
* Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings
* Tide pool, a roc ...
player from
Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Elizabeth City is a city in Pasquotank County, North Carolina, Pasquotank county, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 18,629. Elizabeth City is the county seat and most populous city of Pasqu ...
. The winner of seven world pocket billiard championships and numerous other titles, Lassiter is most well known for his wizardry in the game of
nine-ball
Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...
Billiard Congress of America
The Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is the governing body for cue sports in the United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is ...
's
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
in 1983. That same year, he was also inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. He was ranked number 9 on the ''Billiards Digest 50 Greatest Players of the Century''.
Early life
In his youth, Lassiter showed signs of uncanny hand-eye coordination, both in the areas of pool and
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
. In
sandlot baseball
Sandlot ball or sandlot baseball is a competitive and athletic sports game that follows the basic rules and procedures of baseball. It is less organized and structured, as the name alludes to a makeshift field or an empty lot. In the 20th centu ...
games, Lassiter was an ace
pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...
. According to his friends, who affectionately referred to him as "Bud", he was the player everyone wanted on his team. Lassiter's younger brother, Clarence, spoke of his brother's ability to pitch: "Coach was always trying to sign him up. You know, Bud could a ball. But by then, pool had caught him and he didn't care about the athletic end of things. The coach pestered him and pestered him and tried to get him to play, because he had a natural talent for baseball. But he didn't use it; he was trapped by pool."
Queried on the subject of his pitching, Lassiter himself said, "Oh, sure, I played some baseball. In fact, it was at some little old ball game that I once ate twelve
hot dogs
A hot dog is a grilled, steamed, or boiled sausage served in the slit of a partially sliced bun. The term ''hot dog'' can also refer to the sausage itself. The sausage used is a wiener ( Vienna sausage) or a frankfurter ( Frankfurter Würs ...
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.Elizabeth City. The owner of the pool room there, a man named Speedy Ives, allowed Lassiter to enter through the back door and to shoot whenever he wanted as long as Lassiter swept the floors and cleaned the pool tables.
As a young man, Lassiter became afflicted with a condition which he termed "the swolls"; it would follow him throughout his life. This was a condition in which Lassiter's lips would puff up and become red and swollen when an attractive member of the opposite sex approached him with affection. This peculiarity first appeared in the early 1940s when Lassiter was in
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. It had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, third-most populous city ...
.
Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone remembered his friend's condition well: " assiter'slips would be all puffed up and at first I thought it was from wiping off the lipstick. But there was nothing he could do about it, so he finally gave up on tomatoes across the board by remaining a bachelor. Evelyn told Wimpy he should fall in love and get married, but Wimpy would always say, 'Bless you, Mrs. Wanderone, but I'm already in love – I'm in love with pool.' And he really was."
Hustler days
During the early 1940s, following his discharge from the
Coast Guard
A coast guard or coastguard is a Maritime Security Regimes, maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with cust ...
, Lassiter's main running buddy was Wanderone. Their town of preference was Norfolk, Virginia, which was known at the time as the highest-rolling place for pool hustlers, card players, and gamblers in general. During these years, Lassiter became the "undisputed king" of the pool hustlers, reportedly winning hundreds of thousands of dollars from gambling on pool games between 1942 and 1948 (including $15,000 in a single week). He often accepted money games involving extraordinary sums, often around $1,000 a game. It was during this time that he developed his confidence and skill necessary to begin competing on the professional level with the greatest pocket-billiard masters of the day, including
Willie Mosconi
William Joseph Mosconi (; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 a ...
and Irving Crane.
After the sudden decline of the gambling action in Norfolk around 1948, Lassiter was forced to begin competing professionally in pool tournaments held across the country. His first major tournament was the World Straight Pool Championships in 1953 held in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
's Downtown Bowl; the player who knocked him out – and who would go on to win the tournament and then the world title – was
Willie Mosconi
William Joseph Mosconi (; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 a ...
.
It was also during this time that Lassiter formed a partnership with Don Willis, a player who – while never having won any world titles because he never competed in any of the tournaments – had beaten some of pool's greatest players, including Jimmy Moore, Ralph Greenleaf, and
Willie Mosconi
William Joseph Mosconi (; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 a ...
, all in
straight pool
Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a Cue sports, cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many s as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of Pool (cue sports), pool play ...
. In 1948, Willis beat Lassiter in
nine-ball
Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...
on Lassiter's home turf, Elizabeth City; it was Lassiter's best game. Indeed, Willis' talent for nine-ball was the primary reason for Lassiter forming a partnership with Willis rather than a rivalry. Together they would go on the road and hustle pool rooms, sometimes winning anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 over a period of several days.
Challenge matches
In the nineteenth century and up through the mid-1960s, a common way for world billiards titles to change hands was by a challenge match, meaning a challenge was issued to a championship titleholder accompanied by stake money held by a third party. One of Lassiter's successful defences of his title at the World Straight Pool Championship was in 1966 against Cisero Murphy which was one of the last title challenge matches in billiards. At that match Lassiter showed his talent at —that is, performing some act with the intent of distracting the opponent. Reportedly, Murphy was on a great and long of balls. In response, Lassiter pretended to fall asleep. When Murphy noticed Lassiter sleeping he promptly missed. Lassiter, who was wide awake, jumped out of his chair and ran out the match for the win.
Later years
After his official retirement from pool in 1975, Lassiter continued to play in some low-profile
tournaments
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...
, but due to years of hard living while on the road and marathon gambling sessions that would last into the early hours of the morning, he often was not able to play quite as well as he had in his younger days. Even so, many pool players during those years claim he was still one of the greatest players alive, and a force to be reckoned with on the pool table. Lassiter did come out of retirement, along with many other pool greats, to compete twice in "The Legendary Stars of Pocket Billiards Tournament", once in January 1982 at Harrah's Marina Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, and again in 1983, at the Claridge Hotel and Casino, also in Atlantic City. The players who competed in the 1982 tournament were Lassiter,
Joe Balsis
Joseph (Joe) Balsis (born 1921, Minersville, Pennsylvania, died January 2, 1995, Minersville), nicknamed "the Meatman", was an American professional pool player, who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame in 1982.
Willie Mosconi
William Joseph Mosconi (; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 a ...
. In 1983, the line-up was the same minus Balsis and Cranfield, and with Jimmy Caras added. These were
round-robin tournament
A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...
s, in which each player would be matched against the others in a single match, with each playing the same number of matches, and receiving a set number of points for each match won. Each match consisted of one
seven-ball
Seven-ball is a pool game with rules similar to nine-ball, though it differs in two key ways: the game uses only seven as implied by its name, and play is restricted to particular pockets of the table. William D. Clayton is credited with the g ...
set, to four games, one
nine-ball
Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...
set, race to four games, and in the event of a tie, one
eight-ball
Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, bigs and smalls, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of Pool (cue sports), pool played on a billiard tabl ...
set, best two out of three games. At the 1983 tournament, which was televised on the then-fledgling
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
network, Luther Lassiter pitched a
shutout
In team sports, a shutout (North American English, US) or clean sheet (Commonwealth English, UK) is a game in which the losing team fails to score. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketba ...
. He won all six of his matches for 20 points each, amassing a perfect score of 120 points and the first-place prize of $10,000. After Lassiter defeated
Willie Mosconi
William Joseph Mosconi (; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 a ...
to put the exclamation point on the tournament, commentator for the match Allen Hopkins remarked to co-commentator Chris Berman, "This is no surprise to me; Wimpy's a great nine-ball player. I watched him play, and he looked like the young Wimpy, from years back. He played great. The way he played this tournament he could have beat anybody, including oday's top players" After defeating U. J. Puckett earlier in the same tournament, Lassiter said in response to Berman's praise of his playing, "Well, I'm the youngest and I'm still lucky."
When another
hall of fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
r, Ed Kelly, was asked who was the toughest player he ever played against, he responded that it depended on the game but that if it was nine-ball, "it would have to be Luther Lassiter .... Wimpy was the best .... He was the best shot-maker that I ever saw."
Luther Lassiter spent his final days in financial trouble, living alone in the house of his childhood in Elizabeth City, on a pension provided by oil tycoon Walter Davis, who was a lifelong friend of Lassiter's. When they were children during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, Lassiter would give Davis, who came from a poor farming family, a couple of dollars whenever he needed it, which often meant the difference between eating and not eating. Davis never forgot Lassiter's kindness, and repaid him by taking care of his necessities in his last years. To escape his loneliness, Lassiter would often ride his bicycle a couple of blocks away to the home of his younger brother Clarence and wife Barbara, to and hang out and play with their two sons.
On October 25, 1988, Lassiter died of natural causes in his hometown of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He was found by his nephew next to his pool table where he had apparently been practicing.
Clarence's wife, Barbara, said after his death: "I knew two or three people in my life who I thought would go to heaven – with no doubt – and impywas one of them. He treated everybody like they was supposed to be treated."
Publications
Lassiter authored a two books on the sport:
*''The Modern Guide to Pocket Billiards''; New York: Fleet Publishing (1964); .
*''Billiards for Everyone''; New York:
Grosset & Dunlap
Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.
The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group.
In recent years, through the P ...
Tampa, Florida
Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...
Straight Pool Championship
* 1963
Tampa, Florida
Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...
Nine-ball
Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...
Stardust
Stardust may refer to:
* A type of cosmic dust, composed of particles in space
Entertainment Songs
* “Stardust” (1927 song), by Hoagy Carmichael
* “Stardust” (David Essex song), 1974
* “Stardust” (Lena Meyer-Landrut song), 2012
* ...
Open Nine-ball Championship
* 1971
Stardust
Stardust may refer to:
* A type of cosmic dust, composed of particles in space
Entertainment Songs
* “Stardust” (1927 song), by Hoagy Carmichael
* “Stardust” (David Essex song), 1974
* “Stardust” (Lena Meyer-Landrut song), 2012
* ...
Open All-Around Championship
* 1971 National Billiards News Achievement Award
* 1983 ESPN Legends of Pocket Billiards Tournament
* 1983
North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame
The North Carolina Museum of History is a history museum located in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. It is an affiliate through the Smithsonian Affiliations program. The museum is a part of the Division of State History Museums, Office of Archi ...
* 1983
Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame This is the list of people inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's hall of fame to honor outstanding people who, through their competitive skills and dedication, have enriched the sport and industry. Two categories have been established in ...
* 1999 Billiards Digest 9th Greatest Player of the Century