Billiards: Rhymes with Cool

Somebody once said that "proficiency at billiards is a sign of a misspent youth." If so, the place to study late-stage delinquency last week was Manhattan's Hotel Commodore, site of the World Pocket Billiard Championship.

There was "Arizona Jimmy" Moore, wearing cowboy boots with his tuxedo, and Onofrio Lauri, whose favorite trick is to polish his bald pate with a handkerchief so that it will reflect the table lights into the eyes of his opponents. There, too, was Irving Crane, who in one year at Hobart College learned mostly how to run a rack so fast that his...