AGE OF DISCOVERY

Louis XI of France had the first known billiard table, purchased in 1470. The game grew in popularity among French nobility and British gentry. Famous enthusiasts of the sport include Mary, Queen of Scots, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Mozart, Napoleon, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason. Billiards has also been mentioned in the works of Shakespeare, notably in Antony and Cleopatra.

The cue stick was developed in the late 1600s and soon came to be the first choice of equipment. The mace was an inconvenient tool when the ball was near a rail. In these instances, players would turn the mace around and use its narrow handle to strike the ball. The handle was called a queue, meaning “tail,” from which we get the word “cue.”

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Billiard balls have evolved as well. They have been turned from wood, formed from clay and carved from ivory elephant tusks. Unfortunately, all of these materials had potential to warp, crack or split. During the Victorian era, manufacturing firm Phelan and Collender challenged inventors to develop an alternative, offering a $10,000 reward (several hundred thousand dollars in today’s currency). John Wesley Hyatt created the first industrial plastic in 1869, called celluloid, by combining nitrocellulose and camphor. But celluloid was combustible, and under certain circumstances, billiard balls could explode. Hyatt and others in the industry subsequently developed other plastic compounds in the quest to perfect the balls’ density, hardness, resiliency, sphericity and balance. Today, billiard balls are cast in phenolic resin.

Technical advances made in the 1800s further progressed billiards into a game of precision, including the invention of the leather cue tip, using chalk to increase friction between the cue tip and the ball, and the introduction of slate for table beds and vulcanized rubber for cushions. The two-piece cue was developed in 1829. A two-to-one ratio of table length to width became standard in the 19th century.

Variations of the game relied on the cushions and/or pockets cut into them. Carom billiards is played on a pocketless table using two cue balls and one or two object balls. The French concentrated on caroms while English billiards is played with three balls and six pockets. Pockets were initially designed as a hazard but later became a target. The popularity of English billiards tapered off in the 1920s; today the more complex game of snooker is the country’s dominant game. Pool, or pocket billiards, is the popular style of play in the U.S.

By 1830, public rooms devoted to billiards appeared in America. The word “pool” means a collective bet, or ante. Though many non-billiard games—such as poker—involve a pool, the name became attached to pocket billiards. In the 19th century, a “poolroom” was a betting parlor for horse racing that included billiards tables so patrons could pass time between races. The seedy connotation of “poolroom” derives from the betting, smoking and fighting that often took place there.

20th CENTURY

Over time, games were standardized, competition increased, and billiards eventually reached the level of sport. The Billiard Congress of America describes 24 kinds of pool games in its “Rules and Record Book.” The most widely played games are eight ball (the most popular game among amateurs), nine ball, rotation and straight pool. In the first half of the 20th century, straight pool players Ralph Greenleaf (1902–1950) and Willie Mosconi (1913–1993) dominated tournaments. By the 1970s, nine ball became the almost exclusive choice for professional tournaments.

From 1878 to 1956, pool and billiards championship tournaments were played almost annually. Players were so renowned that they were featured on cigarette trading cards. Pool was a popular pastime for troops during wartimes—professional players even toured military posts. At the end of World War II, however, returning soldiers were more focused on building lives with wives, houses and careers than spending hours at a pool table. Poolrooms were forced to close and by the end of the 1950s it seemed that the game was dying out.

In 1961, the film “The Hustler” was released and sparked a new interest in the game. Paul Newman had the title role in this depiction of the dark life of a pool hustler. New rooms opened and pool flourished again, until the Vietnam War and other social concerns took precedence. In 1986, Paul Newman reprised his role from “The Hustler” in “The Color of Money,” which also featured Tom Cruise as an up-and-coming professional.

Present

Renewed enthusiasm for pool has led to the opening of upscale rooms that bear little resemblance to the unsavory establishments of the past. Today’s poolrooms have quality equipment, expert instruction and positive social interaction—for women as well as men. The influence of technology in recent years, such as live streaming of events and the explosion of social media, has transformed how players and fans alike have consumed the game of billiards.