Irving Crane nicknamed "the Deacon", was an American pool

Billiards

Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...

 player from Livonia

Livonia (town), New York

Livonia is a town in Livingston County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 7,286.The Town of Livonia contains a village, also called Livonia. The town is on the eastern border of the county.-History:...

 (near Rochester

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

), New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, and ranks among the stellar players in the history of the sport. Considered one of the all-time greats, he is most well known for his mastery in the game of straight pool (14.1 continuous)

Straight Pool

Straight pool, also called 14.1 continuous or simply 14.1, is a pocket billiards game, and was the common sport of championship competition until overtaken by faster-playing games like nine-ball...

 at which he won numerous championships, including six world billiards titles.

Early life

Crane's fascination with billiards started at age 11, sparked by play on a toy pool table his brother received as a Christmas gift. Showing interest and ability, his father Scott Crane, a trial lawyer and sportsman, and his mother, a high school teacher, soon replaced their dining room table with a 4' by 8' pool table. He soon ventured out of the home to practice a couple days each week at Olympic Billiards, a room that was part of a bowling alley in Scottsville, a suburb of Rochester, New York

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

. Crane stated in 1998: "Other kids, you know they'd play for twenty minutes or half an hour and they'd say, 'let's do something else.' I could play all day and never get enough. I couldn't wait to get home from school to play."

Crane's status as a wunderkind

Child prodigy

A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...

 was quickly evident; although he was entirely self-taught

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism is self-education or self-directed learning. In a sense, autodidacticism is "learning on your own" or "by yourself", and an autodidact is a person who teaches him or herself something. The term has its roots in the Ancient Greek words αὐτός and διδακτικός...

, at 14 he ran 89 balls in straight pool at a local pool room

Pool hall

A billiard/billiards, pool or snooker hall is a place where people get together for playing cue sports such as pool, snooker or carom billiards...

, calling each shot in advance, as is mandatory in straight pool. Following this feat, his parents replaced the smaller table with a full size tournament table. Over the next ten years some of the best players of the era, including Willie Hoppe

Willie Hoppe

William Frederick Hoppe , known predominantly as Willie Hoppe , was an internationally renowned American professional carom billiards champion, who was posthumously inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1966.-Biography:Hoppe was born in Cornwall on Hudson, New York on...

 and Andrew Ponzi, came to practice with the promising champion. Despite consistent play throughout his teenage years, Crane did not enter any tournaments until he was 23 years old.

In February 1939, at age 26, Crane 150 balls against his opponent in an exhibition straight pool match on a difficult 5' by 10' table in Layton, Utah

Layton, Utah

-External links:*...

. While this was impressive in and of itself, at the crowd's urging, he continued his run, ultimately pocketing 309 consecutive balls thus shattering the previous world record of 244 consecutive balls.

World titles

This coup was soon followed by his first world title in 1942. Over the following three decades, Crane won almost two dozen major championships, including the World Crown in 1946, 1955, 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1972, the Ballantine International Championship in 1965, the International Roundrobin championship in 1968, and the World Series of Billiards in 1978 at age 65. Of these triumphs, his win at the 1966 World Crown is the most celebrated. At that tournament he ran 150 and out in the finals, never letting his opponent back to the table after an early safety battle; an accomplishment that has never been equaled. Crane also holds the record for the most runner-up finishes for the World Crown with 13.

Despite his mastery and world renown, Crane found it hard to make a living solely playing pool, and in 1957 began working as a Cadillac

Cadillac

Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...

 salesman at a dealership in Rochester, New York. He continued there for 17 years. According to Crane's daughter, at Rochester's annual auto show

Auto show

An auto show, or motor show, is a public exhibition of current automobile models, debuts, concept cars, or out-of-production classics. It is commonly attended by automobile manufacturers. Most auto shows occur once or twice a year...

 his dealership's exhibit featured a pool table at which Crane would run balls while answering questions. "Working" for a living was purely a choice of survival. In an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1969 Crane said "If I had to make a choice between selling cars and playing pool, I'd choose pool... The only time I've ever been really happy is when I was at a pool table."

Described as a "tall, lean man with the imperial bearing of the headmaster of Eton," Crane earned the appellation The Deacon because of his gentlemanly ways, his very cautious approach to the game and his impeccable dress, never approaching a pool table except in a conservative suit. Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray once said Crane "would make Henry Fonda look furtive." Highlighting Crane's both cautious approach and mastery, Mike Sigel

Mike Sigel

Mike Sigel is an American professional pool player.Sigel has won over 102 major pool tournaments, including 3 US Open Nine-ball Championship tournaments and 5 world pocket billiard championship titles...

, one of pool's most illustrious players, reportedly asked Crane to play one day when Sigel was a young player. Crane assented and after Sigel broke, Crane ran 200 balls and then played a .

Later life

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, Crane's wife of 64 years, Althea, stated "A lot of people, if it was a hot day and there was no air conditioning, they'd take off their coat to play. But not Irving Crane." Rudolph Wanderone, a/k/a Minnesota Fats, once opined, "Irv Crane would have been the only guy to notice the horse under Lady Godiva," while professional rival Willie Mosconi

Willie Mosconi

William Joseph Mosconi , best known as Willie Mosconi, was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship an unmatched fifteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially...

 who had criticized Crane for his cautious style, stated in his 1993 autobiography, Willie's Game, that "Crane wouldn't take a shot unless his grandmother could make it."

Crane was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America

Billiard Congress of America

Billiard Congress of America is a governing body for cue sports in North America , the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association...

's hall of fame in 1978. In 1999 Crane was ranked as number eight on Billiard Digest's fifty greatest players of the century. In his entry there he is lauded as having been, along with Mosconi, the "best in the world, flat out" between 1941 and 1956. In 1980 Crane retired from professional play. He stopped playing entirely in about 1996. On November 17, 2001 at age 88, four days after entering a nursing home

Nursing home

A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...

, Crane died of natural causes. He was survived by his wife Althea, son Irving, daughter Sandra, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.