The Snap Magazine (originally titled Make It On the Snap, and not to be confused with several later magazines using the word "Snap" in their titles) is an American pool (pocket billiards) periodical that was published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The magazine has been described in various venues as "the best of all pool publications" (BilliardMemorabilia.com)[1] and "among the best billiard publications ever" (Billiard Scoop).[2]
The Snap Magazine set many precedents in the world of billiard journalism. In addition to articles on never-before-covered aspects of the billiard world, the magazine featured profiles of formerly secretive hustlers and up-and-coming players (many of whom went on to become top pros), hard-hitting opinion pieces, humorous hustling and gambling stories, original photography, cartoons, billiard fiction, reports on hundreds of billiard tournaments from local to international, and controversial guest editorials. It also included instruction columns on all types of billiard play, including snooker, one-pocket, straight pool, nine-ball, eight-ball and other popular games.
History
Originally planned as a newsletter for the fledgling organization Southeastern Network of Amateur Pool Players (SNAPP), excitement surrounding the publication generated so many requests for advertising before the first issue was published that the publishers decided to discard the newsletter format in favor of a full-fledged, slick magazine.
Founders Rick Boling and "Kreole" Freddie Yates put together the first bi-monthly issue of Make It On the Snap in the summer of 1989 in Tallahassee, Florida, operating at "OTS Publications, a division of Billiard Enterprises of Florida",[3] and it was an immediate success. The first issue featured Grady "the Professor" Mathews and Buddy "the Rifleman" Hall, as well as various other contributors.[3] Traveling to pool tournaments and popular pool halls around the Southeast, representatives of the magazine began selling subscriptions, wholesale distribution packages and advertising, while the publishers worked on adding to the editorial staff and gathering stories from the field. By the time the second issue (October/November 1989) was published, a staff of professional editors, writers and contributors had been assembled, complemented by a group of advisors including such pool luminaries as Benny "The Goose" Conway, Ray "Cool Cat" Martin, Mike Massey, David Howard, Floyd Baxter, and Gene "The Glove" Catron.[4]
The magazine grew and prospered until, in its second year, a series of unexpected financial reversals caused it to cease publication in December, 1991.[5]
Covers and title
By the end of its first year of publication, the editors realized they had erred in starting off with an odd-months issue, so they took the opportunity to rectify this and also to redesign the cover and rename the magazine. The cover of the first issue of the second year carried a new and sleeker logo featuring the shortened name The Snap Magazine.[6] While covers of earlier issues centered on photos of well-known and up-and-coming players, with the new design the publishers also initiated a policy of creating humorous and/or historically significant covers. These covers, many of which became famous among billiard aficionados, included such staged scenes as: a Neanderthal couple playing pool on a stone table using rocks for balls (history issue);[7] a grizzled lobsterman checking his catch of 9-balls in an authentic lobster trap (New England issue);[8] and a group of yuppie gamblers playing at a pool/craps table with 9-ball and 8-ball dice and a croupier using a modified cue stick to rake in the chips (gambling issue).[9] Two of the most famous covers were for the Johnston City and collectible cues issues. On the former, rare photos of the famous "Pit" at Johnston City and a well-preserved copy of a Johnston City program appeared.[10] The latter featured a photo of one of the rarest billiard cue-and-case combinations, with a cue built by master cue builder Gus Szamboti and a matching case by Fellini.[11][12]
With a subtitle of "The Magazine for Pool Players," the editorial concept of the magazine was to feature as many players as possible in its pages, while offering expert instruction, advice and commentary geared toward the average pool player. In fact, the publishers were so intent on including as much content as possible, a typical issue often contained two to three times the word count of the other billiard magazines of the day. The publishing of so many names of average players and covering their tournament and other activities, endeared the magazine to thousands around the country, and word of mouth caused circulation to soar.[13]
Content
Example article, on the famous Johnston City tournaments.
The eclectic magazine's content ranged from humorous tidbits and trivia, to ground-breaking articles on such taboo subjects as hustlers and gambling. "Billy's Briefs", a column of short news stories, was billed as "a compilation of news, rumors, outright lies and miscellany", while "On The Road With 'Kreole' Freddie" concentrated on regional pool stories from the co-founder's extensive travels to various pool venues and tournaments. "Cue Tips" offered helpful ideas on cue care and repair, and "Senior Snapshots" reported on pool and billiard activities among seniors around the country. Other columns focused on the medical and health aspects of tournament play, snooker, billiards history, player and pool room profiles, pool at colleges and universities, equipment innovations, and humorous and/or poignant pool stories.
Features ran the gamut from interviews with famous players and hustlers, to in-depth reports on gambling in the sport, major tournaments, regional reports, historical incidents, famous tournaments, pool cue builders, the development of regional tours, up-and-coming players, and famous historical billiard figures. Several of the issues concentrated on regions, such as Texas, California, New England and Florida.
The magazine also set a precedent by publishing pool fiction, with stories from professional fiction writers, real-life hustlers and average players. Scattered throughout each issue were tidbits of billiard trivia, humorous road stories, cartoons, quotes from well-known billiard figures, obituaries, and other short features.[14]
Humor
The magazine's cartoon mascots and caricatures.
Another unique aspect of the editorial and graphic concept was humor. Led by its four cartoon Mascots, Billiard Billy, Memphis Millie, the Pool Doc, drawn by art director Thomas Pagels; and English Alice, drawn by international and history editor Pauline Masterton,[15] the magazine published humorous news columns, cartoons, rants, bar games & puzzles, and fiction. "The Hustler" column featured first-hand stories about real-life pool hustlers, often containing humorous gambling stories and relating the harsh reality of life on the road. In addition to its mascots, the magazine's two major editorial contributors, "Kreole" Freddy Yates, and Benny "The Goose" Conway, were represented by cartoon characters (an anthropomorphic, pool-playing crayfish and goose, respectively), also drawn by Pagels. Sprinkled throughout its pages were quips, quotes and humorous stories written by well-known hustlers and other billiard figures. And, in another break from traditional billiard magazines, poetry on the subject of pool was published. The magazine's cavalier and humorous tone was a breath of fresh air in the mostly stolid, conservative world of billiard journalism at the time.
Editors and staff
Neither of the magazine's founders had experience in periodical publishing, circulation or promotion, so they had to rapidly put together a group of experienced professionals to handle all the aspects of the enterprise with which they were not familiar. Most of these were friends of the founders, willing to take a shot on the upstart publication and work for no pay. And, luckily, among these friends were several with exactly the right talents and expertise to round out the core staff of editors and advisors. Over the years this staff was increased to include several billiard experts, industry figures, marketing specialists, and artists. The initial core staff, however, remained intact for the entire duration of the magazine's existence. They included editor-in-chief Rick Boling, senior editor Elaine Smith, international and history editor Pauline Masterton, art director Thomas Pagels, and technical and instruction editor Benny Conway.[16]
Merchandise
Poster featuring Billiard Billy and Memphis Millie.
The popularity of The Snap generated in some players and patrons an emotional loyalty seldom seen in the world of billiard journalism, a fact that eventually led to the development of a line of T-shirts and other promotional products. Featuring the magazine's popular cartoon mascots, these items were designed by staff artist Tom Pagels, and were so popular that he was commissioned to hand-paint two full-color posters, one featuring Billiard Billy and Memphis Millie, and the other featuring the Pool Doc.[15] The posters were an instant hit, and eventually came to grace the walls of many a pool room and private game room. In addition, noting an unfilled need in the industry, the editors later developed a line of tournament supplies, including such items as laminated cards for conducting random draws at the beginning of tournaments; pads of signup sheets; scoring materials; rule cards; instruction books; disposable flow charts; and most popular of all, large, erasable, permanent, wall-mounted flow charts.
Legacy
Articles from The Snap, especially those by billiards luminaries, are still being republished today.[17] From its inception to its demise, copies of The Snap were coveted by players and billiard industry figures alike. Long before the magazine went out of business, back issues had become collector's items, selling for many times the original cover price. Copies of the first issue were in such demand that the magazine was inspired to publish a reprint of it. The reprint was limited to 1,000 copies, and each copy was numbered to distinguish it from the originals. Some years after the magazine folded, a flooding incident at the storage facility where the remnants of the business were stored destroyed hundreds of back issues, posters and other merchandise, thereby increasing in rarity all remaining Snap Magazine memorabilia.[5] Today, some individual issues demand up to $150 a copy, and complete sets of all thirteen issues sell for as much as $1,500 on the Internet.[1]
Related Research Articles
Cue sports, also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions.
Nine-ball is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game is traceable to origins in the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick, players must strike the white cue ball to pocket nine colored billiard balls in ascending numerical order. An individual game is won by the player pocketing the 9-ball. Matches are usually played as a race to a set number of racks, with the player who reaches the set number winning the match.
Efren Manalang Reyes,, nicknamed The Magician and Bata, is a Filipino professional pool player. A winner of over 80 international titles, Reyes was the first player to win world championships in two different disciplines in pool. Among his numerous titles Reyes is a four-time World Eight-ball Champion, the 1999 WPA World Nine-ball Champion, a two-time World Cup champion, a three-time US Open winner, a two-time World Pool League winner and a 13-time Derby City Classic winner – including an unprecedented five Master of the Table crowns. By defeating Earl Strickland in the inaugural Color of Money event in 1997, Reyes took home the largest single event purse in pool history of $100k. Many analysts, fans, current and former players consider Reyes to be the greatest pool player of all time.
William Joseph Mosconi was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship an unmatched fifteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially synonymous with pool in North America – he was nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" – and he was among the first Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductees. Mosconi pioneered and regularly employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to popularize pool as a national recreation activity.
Straight pool, also called 14.1 continuous or 14.1 rack, is a type of pool game. It was the common sport of championship competition until it was overtaken by faster-playing games like nine-ball.
The Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is a governing body for cue sports in North America, the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). It was established under this name in 1948 as a non-profit trade organization in order to promote the sport and organize its players via tournaments at various levels. The BCA is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The voting members of the organization are mostly equipment manufacturers.
One-pocket is a pool game. Unlike other games played on a pool table where any pocket can be used to send in object balls, only two pockets are used in this game. The object of the game is to score points. A point is made when a player pockets any object ball into their designated pocket. The winner is the first to score an agreed-upon number of points.
Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling with the hustler, as a form of both a confidence trick and match fixing. It is most commonly associated with, and originated in pocket billiards (pool), but also can be performed with regard to other sports and gambling activities. Hustlers may also engage in "sharking"—distracting, disheartening, enraging, or even threatening their opponents—to throw them off. Hustlers are thus often called "pool sharks". Professional and semi-pro hustlers sometimes work with a "stakehorse"—a person who provides the money for the hustler to bet with —in exchange for a substantial portion of all winnings. Another form of hustling is challenging "marks" to bet on trick shots that seem nearly impossible but at which the hustler is exceptionally skilled.
The following is a glossary of traditional English-language terms used in the three overarching cue sports disciplines: carom billiards referring to the various carom games played on a billiard table without pockets; pool, which denotes a host of games played on a table with six pockets; and snooker, played on a large pocket table, and which has a sport culture unto itself distinct from pool. There are also hybrid pocket/carom games such as English billiards.
Kelly pool is a pool game played on a standard pool table using a standard set of sixteen pool balls. Gameplay involves players each drawing one of fifteen numbered markers called peas or pills at random from a shake bottle, which assigns to them the correspondingly numbered pool ball, kept secret from their opponents, but which they must pocket in order to win the game. Kelly pool is a rotation game, which means that players must contact the lowest numbered object ball on each shot first until the opportunity to pocket their own is presented. Two rule variants are set forth under rules promulgated by the Billiard Congress of America (BCA). In the simpler form, the object of play starts and ends with the goal of pocketing one's secret ball. In the second, in addition to the goal of pocketing one's secret ball, points are scored in various ways. In the instance where pills are unavailable, a cloth may be used to cover the balls, which are then chosen blindly, recorded, and replaced for play.
Keith McCready is an American professional pool player, nicknamed Earthquake.
Nick Varner is an American pool player who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1992. Varner was the winner of the 1999 WPA World Nine-ball Championship.
Larry Lisciotti was an American professional pool player and notable road hustler, nicknamed "the Prince of Pool".
Billy Joe "Cornbread Red" Burge, was an American pool player. Inducted into the One-pocket Hall of Fame in 2004 and Legends of Bank Pool in 2005, Cornbread Red is revered as "one of the most talented and entertaining characters in the history of pool".
Cecil P. "Buddy" Hall has been an American professional pool player for three decades. The International Pool Tour heralds Hall as a "living pool legend." He is nicknamed "The Rifleman" for his accuracy.
James William Moore, known as Cowboy Jimmy Moore, was a world-class American pocket billiards (pool) player originally from Troup County, Georgia, and for most of his life a resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico, best known for his mastery in the game of straight pool.
Michael Massey, professionally known as Mike Massey, is an American professional pocket-billiards (pool) player, best known as a trick-shot artist since the late 1970s, who has given substantial visibility to the sport by traveling the globe to perform exhibitions and compete in a variety of disciplines. He has won professional national and international tournaments in trick-shot competition, nine-ball, eight-ball, straight-pool, and one-pocket, and he has become even more influential in the sport as an accomplished instructor, consultant, and fund-raiser. From 1989 to 1991 he served as a contributing editor of The Snap Magazine. Massey was born in Loudon, Tennessee, and for several years lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he owned a pool hall. He has the nickname of "Tennessee Tarzan", but he now lives in Midway, Utah.
The Derby City Classic is an annual pool convention and tournament held every January at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana casino in Elizabeth, Indiana near Louisville, Kentucky. It is eight days long and offers various disciplines of pocket billiard competitions for pool players of all caliber. It is often referred to as the DCC.
The Golden Cue Billiard Lounge is the only extant billiard hall in Albany, New York, the state capital, and one of the oldest poolrooms in the Northeast. Bordering on Colonie in the state's Capital District, it was opened in 1963, "riding the wave" of the popularity of The Hustler (1961), and bought in 1973 by Rocco Spinelli, Sr., whose son Rocco, Jr. owns it today. The venue has hosted Joss Tour events for many years.
Ronnie Monroe "Fast Eddie" Allen was labeled as a pool "super star" in the prime of his pool-shooting career by his peers during pool's golden era. He was an American professional pool player.
References
1 2 Abbott, Dick (2008). "Publications". BilliardMemorabilia.com. Roanoke, VA: self-published. Archived from the original on February 10, 2007. Retrieved July 17, 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
