"Snooks" Perlstein - Billiards Champion

"Snooks" Perlstein - A Pocket Full of Memories Shooting Pool

By William Kelly

It's 7 p.m. on Wednesday night at Sullivan's bar in Somers Point, and Morris "Snooks" Perlstein lines up a practice shot before the beginning of the first game of he pocket billiards Winter League season.

Snooks stands out from the rest of his eight man team. Maybe its his age. This modest octogenarian is a half century older than the average age of the rest of the players, but he manges to keep a steady hand on the stick, hit the ball straight and sink it in the corner pocket like it was second nature. For Snooks, it is second nature.

This former Atlantic City pocket billiards champion (1951-1954) is generally recognized as being the only living person to have played every world champion since 1926. And he's defeated quite a few of them, including the legendary Ralph Greenleaf, the greatest pool player of all time.

"I'll be 88 years old this Christmas," Snooks says as he slides up to Sullivan's bar and orders a drink. "I was a Christmas present, and I don't believe it myself that I'm still around and still shooting pool."

Born in Philadelphia on December 25, 1904, Morris Perlstein moved to Atlantic City with his family when he was 4, and began to play pool at the YMCA when he was 15.

"Then I began to practice regularly and I really got into the game," he says. And he's been playing it ever since, except for the years he was in the poultry business, when as he puts it, "I had to lay off the game for awhile."

Snooker is a pocket billiards game popular in England, and if you're left without a good shot, you've been "snookered." Snooks however, didn't get his nickname from the poolhalls as one might imagine.

"I got my nickname when I was eight years old, when Earl Yost, a close friend whose family owned Yost Bakery, said that I looked like Snookie Ukom, a comic book character. I didn't know anything about pool at the time."

A few years later he discovered pool, started hanging out at the Y, and then one day went into George Ross' Pool Parlor on South North Carolina Avenue, where he played his best games and legendary opponents - Greenleaf, Tom Heuston, George Kelly, Willie Mosconi - all the great names of the great game.

In 1926 he practiced every day all summer long with Tom Heuston, a houseman at the Grand Atlantic Hotel on South Virginia Ave. They had a six table room at the Hotel and Snooks and Heuston played and practiced. "What a great player and gentleman he was," recalls Perlstein of Heuston. "He's one of the great players nobody knows."

Heuston left Atlantic City for Philadelphia, where he won the World Championship, then won it again. He won the World Championship six time in all, and for two years held teh World Championship in Three Cushion Billiards as well.

In 1948 Ralph Greenleaf came to Atlantic City to play some demonstration games at Ross's Pool Parlor, but found himself in a real match against Perlstein. While Willie Mosconi is well known as the greatest living player, with some 15 World Championships, Greenleaf is credited with 17 World Championships and is recognized by many as the greatest pool player who ever lived. Greenleaf dominated the play for decades from the early '20s on. And when he was no longer in his prime, he seldom, if ever, lost.

When Greenleaf faced off against Perlstein however, Snooks is the one who gave the demonstration, winning the straight pool match 150-147.

"I don't think any match meant more to me, since Greenleaf was the greatest of all time," says Snooks. When Greenleaf died in Mt. Holly, Snooks paid his respects and attended the service.

He has also played, and lost to Willie Mosconi three times. "He ran 135 and was out at 150," laments Perlstein. He hears occassionally from Willie Mosconi's wife, who keeps him posted on the health of the former champion, who hasn't been feeling well lately. (God bless you Willie!)

Snooks became Atlantic City champion in 1951 and held the title four years, making Ross' Pool Parlor a mandatory storp on the old pool shark circuit. Having played every world champion since 1926, Snooks knows them all. Besides Greenleaf and Mosconi he's played Allen Hopkins, Don Wills and Chic Davis, the great black billiards player, who he rallied 40 consecutive points to win 150-79.

At Ross's in 1951 he played George Kelly, the national champion from Philadelphia. "Kelly was a real gentleman," says Snooks, of Grace Kelly's uncle (his father and her father were brothers).

Nor was Ross's Pool Parlor your typical pool hall. "He ran a good room," Perlsteain recalls. "It was a gentleman's room. If he heard someone cussen' he would ask them to leave. It had one 5' by 10' demonstration table, with the rest being 4' 1/2 by 9' regulation.

In 1978 N.J. State Senator Steve Perskie introduced a resolution recognizing Snooks, with Rep. William Hughes doing the same thing in Congress. The resolution reads in part: "Whereas Morris 'Snooks' Perlstein, a lifelong resident and most distinguished citizen of Atlantic City has earned an enviable and truly outstanding reputation for his prowess on the green clooth as a player of the elegant game of pocket billiards....A gentle and modest man who has dazzled us all with his skill...made Atlantic City a mandatory stop for those seeking worldwide recognition in this skilled and artful game...and has played virtually every world and national champion..."

Snooks' team, Sullivan's A Team in the Winter Bar league is the defending champion in the league, but they don't consider Snooks a ringer. "Not at my age. I'm too old to be a ringer," he says. "Besides, we play on small bar size tables, which are a lot different from a regulation table - you can't play the angles as much, and luck comes into play more. You have to be lucky on a bar table. And you can be lucky, but the next guy can be luckier. The skill comes out on a regulation table."

Snooks also plays often at the Margate Log Cabin, a private club with a pool table that Snooks personally pays the upkeep on. "I've never had a table at home," Snooks says, which allows him to get out of his Ventnor home and socialize.

What advice does he give young players who ask?

"Practice."

"That's the greatest advice of all. If you're interested in the game, practice. Steve Miserak says that too, but I was telling people that before Steve was born."

Then Snooks puts his glass on the bar, picks up his stick and goes back to take a few shots before the Pocket Billiards League begins its winter season at Sullivan's Bar & Grill, Somers Point, New Jersey.