William A. Spinks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William A. Spinks (born ca. 1866; died 15 January 1933, in Los Angeles, California)[1] was a professional carom billiards player in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition to being Pacific Coast billiards champion several times[1] and an exhibition player in Europe,[2] he became the co-inventor in 1897 of modern billiard chalk with chemist and electrical engineer William Hoskins[2][3] (1862-1934)[4] of Chicago, Illinois. Spinks was originally (and again in retirement) a Californian, but spent much of his professional career in Chicago.[1][2]

[edit] As an inventor

The top of a box of a dozen cubes of Spinks billiard chalk, ca. 1900-1910. Note the endorsement by World Champion Jacob Schaefer Sr., often Spinks's opponent as a touring pro.
The top of a box of a dozen cubes of Spinks billiard chalk, ca. 1900-1910. Note the endorsement by World Champion Jacob Schaefer Sr., often Spinks's opponent as a touring pro.

While Spinks was only somewhat notable as a player, his lasting contribution to cue sports was the culmination of his fascination with the chalk used by players on the leather tips of their cue sticks to better grip the cue ball. In the late 1800s, actual chalk (generally calcium carbonate) was often used, but players experimented with other powdery, abrasive substances, since true chalk, being too abrasive, had a deleterious effect on the game equipment.[5][6]

In 1892,[6] Spinks was particularly impressed by a piece of natural chalk-like substance obtained in France, and presented it to Hoskins for analysis, who determined that it was porous volcanic rock (pumice) originally probably from Mount Etna, Sicily. Together, the two of them experimented with different formulations to achieve the cue ball "action" that Spinks sought.[2]

They settled on a mixture of Illinois-sourced[2] silica and the abrasive substance corundum or aloxite[3] (aluminum oxide, Al2O3),[7][8] founding William A. Spinks & Company in Chicago[2] after securing a patent on 9 March 1897.[3] Spinks himself later left the company, which retained his name and was subsequently run by Hoskins, and later by Hoskins's cousin[2] Edmund F. Hoskin,[9] after Hoskins moved on to other projects.

The Spinks Company product (which is still emulated by modern manufacturers today with slightly different, proprietary silicate compounds) effectively revolutionized billiards,[5][6] by providing a cue tip friction enhancer that allowed the tip to grip the cue ball briefly[3] and impart a previously unattainable amount of "english" (spin),[6] which consequently allowed more precise and extreme cue ball control, made miscueing less likely, made curve and massé shots more plausible, and ultimately spawned the new cue sport of artistic billiards. Even the basic draw and follow shots of pool games (like eight-ball and nine-ball) depend heavily on the effects and properties of modern billiard "chalk".

[edit] As a player

Spinks issued a curious challenge in 1894, to play 14.2 balkline to 600 points, for a $1000 pot (a sizeable amount of money in that period), and while including a local notable surnamed Cotton as well as French champion Edward Fournil, the bet specifically excluded the big names in that era of the sport, in particular Jacob Schaefer Sr., Frank C. Ives and George Franklin Slosson.[10] Spinks was apparently not a fan of upstart cueist Ives in particular. Days after issuing his caveat-laden challenge, Spinks was described by an onlooking journalist as "very uneasy until the seventeenth inning" as a spectator at the balkline World Champion challenge match between Ives and incumbent Schaefer; the latter's point total had been trailing, sometimes badly, in all sixteen previous innings until he rallied in the final one of the game (the first game of several, over six days).[11]

By 1898, the year after the launch of Spinks & Company, he had apparently overcome his reluctance to face World Champions (perhaps from having several years' experience with his own product prototypes), beating Schaefer 260 to 139 (with a high run of 48 vs. 38) and knocking him out of[citation needed] the 18.2 balkline tournament.[12]

Spinks was still considered a newsworthy contender over a decade later, for the World 18.2 Balkline Championship of 1909.[13] He was noted for using the "chuck nurse" (a form of nurse shot) in 1912 to run a then-astounding 1,010 continuous points at 18.2 balkline,[14] before anchor space rules were instituted especially to curtail the effectiveness of the chuck nurse. (He broke off that run without ever missing, leaving the balls in position to continue.) The use of such repetitive, predictable shots by Spinks, Schaefer Sr. and their contemporaries led by 1914 to the development of the more advanced and restrictive 14.1 balkline "champion's game" rules, which thwarted the ease of reliance on nurse shots.[15][16]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c "William A. Spinks", New York Times, 16 January 1933, "Obituaries" section; The New York Times Company, New York, NY, USA; retrieved 25 November 2006.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "The World's Most Tragic Man Is the One Who Never Starts", Clark, Neil M.; originally published in The American magazine, May 1927; republished in hotwire: The Newsletter of the Toaster Museum Foundation, vol. 3, no. 3, online edition accessed February 24, 2007. The piece is largely an interview of Hoskins. (And there actually is a Toaster Museum, backed by a related foundation. They take the history of toast, and electrical heating in general, quite seriously.)
  3. ^ a b c d U.S. Patent 0578514 , 9 March 1897
  4. ^ "C.H.i.C. Timeline 1843-1880", A Guide to the Chemical History of Chicago, Chemical History in Chicago Project, date unspecified; accessed 24 February 2007
  5. ^ a b "Billiards Chalk", Tobey, Eddie; EZineArticles.com, 9 November 2006; retrieved 24 February 2007.
  6. ^ a b c d "Billiards — The Transformation Years: 1845-1897", Russell, Michael; EZineArticles.com, 23 December 2005; retrieved 24 February 2007. The article was used as the source for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, season 6, episode "The Time of Your Death", in which pool chalk plays a small but crucial role; the show perpetuated the "axolite" for "aloxite" error in this article.
  7. ^ "Aloxite", ChemIndustry.com database, retrieved 24 February 2007.
  8. ^ "Substance Summary: Aluminum Oxide", PubChem Database, National Library of Medicine, US National Institutes of Health, retrieved 24 February 2007.
  9. ^ U.S. Patent 1524132 , 27 January 1925
  10. ^ "Spinks's Billiard Challenge", no byline, New York Times, 5 November 1894, p. 6; The New York Times Company, New York, NY, USA; retrieved 25 February 2007. A very short article. NB: Though the article called the game "fourteen-inch balkline" it meant 14.2 balkline more specifically, because 14.1 was not introduced into tournaments until 1914.
  11. ^ "Schaefer Is in the Lead — The "Wizard" 32 Points Ahead of Ives, the Young Expert: Both Men Played Good, Strong Billiards and Ives Led Up to the Last Inning — Pretty Nursing by the Youthful Aspirant for Championship Honors — Ives Had the Best Average and the Highest Run in the Opening Night's Play", no byline, New York Times, 13 November 1894, p. 2; The New York Times Company, New York, NY, USA; retrieved 25 February 2007. An eyewitness summary of the first day of the match. The piece amply demonstrates the popularity of the sport at the time, as the in-depth article made the second page of the newspaper as a whole.
  12. ^ "Spinks Defeats Schaeffer" [sic], no byline, New York Times, 18 January 1898, p. 5; The New York Times Company, New York, NY, USA; retrieved 25 February 2007. Another very short article.
  13. ^ "Billiard Titles in New Contests: Clearance of Clouds and Quibbles Promised in Winter Series of Games — Championship Are Lure — Challenge Match Between Sutton and Slosson Will Open Tilts and Lead to Open Tournament", no byline, New York Times, 24 January 1909, "Sporting News" section, p. S3; The New York Times Company, New York, NY, USA. An in-depth piece that demonstrates the popularity of carom billiards in its heyday and the seriousness with which it was treated by the media.
  14. ^ Shamos, Michael Ian (1993). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards. New York, NY, USA: Lyons & Burford, pp. 50-51. ISBN 1-55821-219-1. 
  15. ^ Shamos (1993), ibid., p. 8
  16. ^ "The Chuck Nurse", Loy, Jim; Jim Loy's Billiards/Pool Page, 2000; accessed 24 February 2007.


v • d • e
Cue sports
Pocket billiards (pool) Nine-ball • Eight-ball • One-pocket • Straight pool • Bank pool • Rotation • Chicago • Cowboy pool • Golf pool • Kelly pool • Bottle pool • Baseball pocket billiards • Three-ball • Cribbage pool • more
Carom billiards Three-cushion • Artistic billiards • Five-pins • Balkline & straight rail • Cushion caroms • Four-ball • more
Other games Snooker • English billiards • Russian pyramid • Bumper pool • Bagatelle • Novuss • more
Resources Glossary • Techniques • Billiards table • Billiard balls • Cue stick • Rack • Players • Organizations • Events • Categories
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/l/William_A._Spinks_8617.html"