I enjoyed the book very much. He was an interesting person to interview. The last time I spoke to him was to tell him the book project was finished. He was very generous with his time considering that it wasn’t a planned interview.

I had no idea that he had left us. I only met him briefly while working on this pol hall project. His interview was a bonus for me because Tony happened to be there the day I interviewed the owners. I found him to be very inviting and generous with his time and knowledge. I appreciate your post, as it points out the many aspects of, what I assume was, a complicated man.

@@romerooe Tony was diabolical and ruthless at the same time it's arguable whether or not he actually saw you or I as a friend per se even though obviously it's certainly appeared he's cordial enough and it wouldn't take too long or be too hard to establish what some would call a friendship but that's where I think people have to be careful, not that he's about some sort of long con, his business acumen is legit, he was under the tutelage of Jack pritzker of the pritzker billionaire family, and okay and oh boy one would think how come he just didn't stick with Jack under that big umbrella... It goes like this if you look the pritzker family each one is an individual billionaire and if I'm not mistaken Jack out of the whole family which I believe is at least 10 to 15 people, he was the smallest billionaire if I'm not mistaken or certainly one of them. I can't remember what the number was it may have been 1.5 billion or 3.5 billion something like that, but Jack is a shark and sharks don't swim with tunas, they eat tunas and if need be they eat other sharks. I'm sure Tony if anything got the bare minimum for however long he was with Jack and you know just like Bill Gates if you watch The Simpsons where he comes over with a buyout offer for Homer's home internet company thing that everybody was coming up with at the height of the tech crash in 2000, old Bill Gates tells his two thug bodyguards okay boys start buying him out and they proceed to just start breaking apart homers computer and everything along with it and Homer says to Bill Gates hey I thought you were going to buy me out and Bill laughs and says you don't honestly believe I became a billionaire by giving away money lololol.. Tony is diabolical and ruthless like I said where the guy was rigging the rack one time for a dollar a game and challenging me to his Casper the ghost 9 ball system where it's got a few different wrinkles compared to the regular ghost 9 ball.. At about the 4th game I spotted it because he was racking the balls and he hesitated and thought for a second and then took the two ball and moved it up near the one and I went ballistic for about 3 seconds and took my hand and scattered the rack across the table and I said you bleep bleep sucker and he was laughing and of course I started laughing because it was just so ruthless and his stories with McCumber the guy who authored playing off of the rail, Tony would just laugh his ass off telling me about these prop bets and one he got off of Alan Hopkins and it's a real suckers bet because it looks easy but it's a sucker's bet and of course if Johnny Archer got suckered into it then for sure McCumber is but then maccmber finds out the hard way and get so pissed off at Tony which I don't think was unusual probably on a daily basis, but Tony really got a kick out of the story when he said the next day he got another proposition bet from Hopkins that had the same similar harmless look to it but was clearly even harder than the one day before and now Tony's laughing his ass off saying that he offered the proposition to McCumber and McCumber is looking at it and thinking and saying okay Tony finally thanks because yesterday was bull**** man... And that Tony laugh.... I got a million stories, most of them are funny but I can't tell them properly because they're on racist and controversial levels where these little whiny girls that run KZfaq and Google won't let a man speak unless it's speak they approve of where it's pretty hard for a guy to tell the truth on certain levels and of course certain levels that are ironically very important but Tony for some reason lol would call me an anti-semite and I told him I prefer genocidal Nazi if you don't mind and he would laugh and then just call me an anti-semite just the same and I told him sure no problem it's a clown term that has no legit in it basis other than a ideological weapon that works and has worked for a long time until it doesn't and therefore no legit intellectual merit as if to suggest that they are beyond criticism and of course that's ludicrous... But what's really funny is that you are trying to label me on bigoted levels when I'm simply just pointing out certain distinctions and facts that are relevant but you're not allowed to discuss it on any sort of public or official level and I don't know why you cannot see the hypocrisy and conspiracy of it all because if it were white men clearly then oh boy you sure would be just not going to hold through the Moon ..... Then one day I walk into the pool room and he says hey I found out something today man I think maybe you got a point I didn't know that Bruce Lee was like part Jewish.. . Uhhh yeah Tony I think you're on to something perhaps he's a Asiatic Rothschild or something good job.... But here's the real funny part he brings me over to the elks club and it's mid-morning and people start filtering in on a Saturday, and everybody's kind of chit-chatting there's a good 20 people in the billiard room now and all of a sudden these two other guys walk in and Tony sees the guy and stops talking to who he was talking to and turns himself 180° at the one guy who just walked in with his friend and says HEY TOM, HOWS THE JEWWWWLERY BUISNESS??? 😄... YOU MAKING ANY MONEY AT YOUR JEWWWWWWLERY BUSINESS????!!!...HEY LOL HEY TOM.... Now that is some funny stuff but what's also funny is the chatter in the room didn't change once because they all know it's Tony and therefore who cares lol. And I don't know any of these people but Tom is looking at me because he knows I'm with Tony I guess and he's got this half smile and shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders and I'm looking at him laughing and shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head and I said hey Tom if you really want to hear something funny he calls me an anti-semite lololol... The elks club and with Tony I'm talking like he always looks towards the horizon and on a national level with single-handedly trying to take down the elks club because of what he said was racial bias and I said okay and so you got a couple of cases that I say who knows if it's even true or not I don't care if it went to a court proceeding or whatever because when you have some sort of entity like this that is written in their bylaws that it's open to any nationality and Creed and race and so on but sort of like NASCAR it just seems to resonate with a certain particular ethnic group or racial group and why don't you just leave it at that man because even if those couple of incidents let's say was true because I looked into it after you started running your mouth about this crap and I got to tell you I would say you're not even reaching thin here where if you had a real concrete legitimate point then fine but you are leveraging something that isn't even there to the point of what I know you're trying to angle and I'll tell you Tony I won't let you do it I'll be one of the people that opposes you.... Tony was a big dreamer and in the case of the elks club there was some factually witnessed occurrences that have to do with the top guy they call him a president or a grand pub or I don't know what the stuff is called officially where the head guy there made exceptions on a few members I think that had felonies or something where I think in their bylaws you cannot become a member or something like that

Scott, Yeah I found out about Tony through a pool hall owner I interviewed. He gave me a copy of Playing Off the Rails, pretty cool story.

I'm best friends with David's son

You know, I don’t remember asking him. I can only assume, him being an ambitious person, he kept a pencil close by write important thoughts or ideas. I’d be curious to know also.

Hes my great uncle he lived in my house for awhile when he had a pool hall in Fairfield. I kid you not he ALWAYS had the pencil in his ear my whole life and my mom's whole life. Even when his mom died he had a pencil in his ear when he went up front to speak at her memorial service. We asked him about it all the time growing up he said it was to hold his ear on .

@@RubyS.1 Thanks, strange but you probably have more information about it than most.

@@RubyS.1 Ha! That’s awesome, now I REALLy wish I would have asked him, but it remains a mystery. Bigfoot, Loch Ness, the pencil behind Tony’s ear.

Hi jeffren70, I'm not familiar with the tournament situation you're referring to, but I hope anything like that was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved. My intention, with this project, was to objectively explore the state of billiards through the eyes of owners and managers at the time. Thanks for commenting.

It was the last USPPA event in Reno. I think Jeff Gregory (he won the tournament) won a lawsuit against him but I don't think he ever got paid. Many other players were never paid, they got the old "Checks in the mail" routine when they asked for their money at the tournament.