Luther Lassiter

Luther Lassiter (November 5, 1918 – October 25, 1988), born Luther Clement Lassiter, Jr. and nicknamed Wimpy, was a world-renowned American pool player from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The winner of six world championships and numerous other titles, Lassiter is most well known for his wizardry in the game of nine-ball at which he is widely considered one of the greatest players in history, if not the greatest. He was inducted into the Billiards Congress of America's Hall of Fame 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.

In his youth, Lassiter showed signs of uncanny hand-eye coordination, both in the areas of pool and baseball. In sandlot baseball games, Lassiter was an ace pitcher. 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 pitch 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 and drank thirteen Cokes and Orange Crushes, and everybody fell to calling me Wimpy" (after the J. Wellington Wimpy character of the Popeye comic strip by the same name who loved to eat hamburgers). So instead of baseball, Lassiter focused on pool, developing his game at City Billiards in 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 cleaned the floors and swept the pool tables.

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