Pool Players

Story of Minnesota Fats

Minnesota Fats is one of the few pool players whose name is known outside the professional pool circles. Born as Rudolph Walter Wanderone Jr., sometime between 1900 and 1913, Minnesota Fats became one of biggest pool legends in the US, if not in the entire world, without winning even one significant pool tournament.

Wanderone was born in New York to a low class family of Swiss origins. He had first learned to play pool at the early age of 5 and by the time he was 13 he dropped out of school to support his career as a traveling pool hustler. He had chosen to be named after a character of a legendary pool player from the 1959 film The Hustler . Later, Wanderone used to claim that the movie character, which was played by Jackie Gleason, was inspired by him. These claims were rejected by Walter Tevis, the author of the book The Hustler.

Thanks to his new nickname and with the help of top pro pool player Willie Mosconi, Fats begun to draw the attention of the American mass media. Fats and Mosconi were the stars of a TV show that hosted weekly pool matches of the two of them, in which Mosconi always stepped out as a winner. The TV show ran for several years and helped making Fats a famous face in every household throughout the States.

Minnesota Fats last years were spent in a hotel in downtown Nashville, Tennessee alongside his wife, Evelyn. He died of congestive heart failure in 1996 at the age of 82 or less. His legacy includes unforgettable quotes such as "A pool player in a tuxedo is like whipped cream on a hot dog" as well as unbelievable stories about a pool match that took place between him and Adolph Hitler.

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