A few weeks ago, I wrote about two of the many fictional accounts of the dangers of pool hustling, as portrayed in film and television. Now, while death from an exploding eightball (Shotgun Slade – “The Pool Shark”) or impalement by cue stick (Castle – “Clear and Present Danger”) is sensational and extremely rare, the risks with pool hustling, which can include death, are more common. Over the past 20 years, a number of true crime and documentary news series have focused on pool hustlers, memorializing their close calls or, regrettably, their unexpected passings. 

The First 48 – “Family Affair/ The Hustler”

Twenty-three seasons strong, The First 48 is an American documentary news television series that follows homicide investigations to their end, with a particular focus on the first 48 hours after the murder. In 2006, the “Family Affair/ The Hustler” episode aimed its spotlight on the death of Jonathan Ardrey, a 42 year-old pool hustler who was beaten to death in Memphis. Locals called him Ya-Ya. He was known to frequent Samples, a pool hall on Lamar Street (now known as The Rack), and he was allegedly a decent player, according to those who knew him on the AZ Billiards Message Forum. His wife said, “Ain’t nobody gonna want to hurt him…unless it’s through this pool thing.” 

Knowing the first 48 hours are crucial, Sgt. Mitch Oliver, who oversees the case, goes so far as to shoot some pool at Samples, hoping to lighten up the locals, build trust, and get someone talking. The $1000 reward is probably even more compelling than Oliver’s eightball game. 

[Spoiler Alert!] But, as it turns out, someone did want to hurt Ardrey, and it had nothing to do with his hustling. Elliot Fullilove and his girlfriend Serena knew Ardrey had some money on him from playing pool. Their attempt to steal the money and his ‘95 Mercury Cougar goes sideways, and they end up splattering his life all over the bedroom. A lucky tip on the location of the Cougar leads Oliver directly to them, and after a brief interrogation, they quickly fold. Fullilove was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. His girlfriend was sentenced to 25 years.

The episode is available to stream for free on Tubi. 

America’s Most Wanted – “Cyber Tracking” 

There are over 1100 America’s Most Wanted episodes so it’s disappointing, but perhaps not entirely surprising, that I cannot find the “Cyber Tracking” episode from Season 25. (Please help me locate it!) Airing in 2012, this episode focused on the November 2009 murder of Michael “Biloxi Mike” Surber, a nationally renowned pool player, who was stabbed to death in his home in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. It is believed that Surber was shooting billiards at Skeeter’s Pool Hall in Gulfport, MS, when he left with an unknown white male, with a receding hairline and ponytail. 

While the episode is unavailable, there is a trove of information about the murder, starting with Ocean Springs Police Lieutenant John Flowers’ effort in 2010 to encourage AMW to focus on the murder. “We didn’t want to jeopardize the integrity of the investigation,” Flowers said. “But as the leads grew cold, we decided to try to touch base with America’s Most Wanted to see if they would consider running the story.”

AMW eventually picked up the case, and the gravel-voiced, hard-hitting host John Walsh turned Surber’ murder mystery into a national hunt. Footage of the suspect is viewable online.  There is also a thread about the case on the online forum AMW Fans, with updates through 2020. The case remains unsolved today and is still listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted page. 

Though no evidence indicates Surber was killed for pool hustling, he was definitely familiar with that world. Speaking about the Derby City Classic in a 2009 interview, Surber said, “On one side is the legal stuff, on one side is illegal stuff — sometimes the pool room mixes right in between…Everybody is in there. The thieves and the gamblers all get together.”

Wicked Attraction – “Lesbians and the Little Man”

Wicked Attraction was an American true crime TV series that focused on how two seemingly ordinary people can come together to commit heinous crimes, thereby forming a “wicked attraction.” Spanning six seasons, the series arguably had one of the most click-baitable episodes, when it aired in 2011 the sensationally named “Lesbians and the Little Man” about the killing of 4’4” Donald Fish, a pool-hustling traveling photographer.

Fish was brutally murdered in the small town of Roseburg, Oregon in July 1990. As the viewer learns through a combination of reenactments (with actors) and interviews (with people involved in the investigation), Fish was shooting pool at Reston Reds and flashing a lot of money he had won. There, two women – “probably lesbians” – come onto Fish with the intent of at least robbing him. The two women are Tamara Upton and Tracey Poirier, both of whom have long-standing criminal histories of burglary, car theft, prostitution, and sexual abuse. They convince Fish they’re going to have a wild night, but it gruesomely ends with Fish getting stuffed into a car trunk, driven to the Umpqua River, stripped, beaten, stoned to death, and skullcrushed.

The duo is apprehended, and ultimately convicted of murder. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment. Incredibly, Poirier jailbreaks in 1998 after convincing a female prison guard to assist her. She was caught again one month later and is currently in an undisclosed prison without parole.  Upton died in prison in 2019.

“Lesbians and the Little Man” is available to stream for free on Tubi.

Snapped: Killer Couples – “Poirier/Upton”

Apparently, the story of Donald Fish’s murder was so lurid that the media executives at the Oxygen Network decided it needed to be reenacted and retold on their true crime television series Snapped: Killer Couples. This program details couples who commit crimes together, such as Tamara Upton and Tracey Poirier, who are the amorous duo featured in the 2014 third season episode “Poirier/Upton,” which is available to watch on Amazon. While the episode lacks the catchpenny title of its predecessor, the show otherwise overdelivers on the provocativeness with flashy graphics, high-energy music, hyperbolic voice-overs, and lots and lots of women kissing and groping.

In fact, Donald Fish, the “world class pool hustler” (according to his co-workers), doesn’t really come up until one-third into the episode, after it’s been established that the “slow simmering sexual tension [between the two women] had boiled over into a white-hot romance more passionate and steamy than anything either woman had ever experienced.”

But, aside from an Oregon police officer revealing that the women “were in a state of euphoria after they had killed [Fish] and licked the blood off of each other,” there is little new information in this retelling.

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks  – “$4.5 Million Gamble”

It’s a brilliant concept for a TV show. Ask high-stakes hustlers, gamblers, and crooks to tell their incredible stories first-hand. With those kinds of required credentials, it’s not surprising that pool hustlers have been featured multiple times on the series. All episodes are available to stream on AppleTV.

The premier episode, which aired in January 2024, features CJ Wiley, the “best money player of the 20th century,” talking about his PhD – i.e., his Pool Hustling Degree. He likens road players to a “secret society,” spouts philosophy (“It’s really a sales game… you’re selling the idea your opponent can beat you.”), and talks tactics for recalling where to play, who to play, and how much to wager.

But, the episode gets more interesting when Wiley takes us back to Pittsburgh 1986, when a $100 race to seven in nineball slowly transitions to $900 games of one-pocket, and Wiley ultimately hustling a local out of $18,000. That’s all dandy until the bartender realizes that Wiley’s play has gotten steadily better and he accuses him of hustling. Wiley manages to escape, but is subsequently robbed by a gunman, which then leads to a shootout. The events, which were first chronicled in the January 1998 issue of Texas Monthly, led Wiley to give up hustling at age 26 and turn pro, clinching the 1996 ESPN World Open and becoming the two-time Mosconi Cup captain.

Hustlers Gamblers Crooks – “Bet Everything on Red”

Scott “The Freezer” Frost is an accomplished professional pool player, a member of the One Pocket Hall of Fame, and a frequent pool podcaster. But, his early pool hustling career almost cost him his life, as he shares in “Bet Everything on Red,” the third episode of season one.

After a basketball coach booted him from the sport at age 17, Frost turned to pool. By age 20, he had made almost $140,000 hustling on the road. “You have to figure out who’s got the money and who’s willing to lose it…The toughest part of being on the road is the stress of carrying all the cash and always watching your back. You deal with some rough guys.”

Those “rough guys” turned up in Houston, when an itch to get a game with the deep-pocketed Mr. Johnson led Frost to abandon his own ‘rules of pool hustling’ and get into a car with a stranger, after flashing his billiards bankroll. While that stranger had promised Frost an intro to Mr. Johnson, his true intent was much more nefarious. The stranger led Frost to two local thugs, who promptly beat the shit out of Frost, first almost drowning him in a ravine, and then almost killing him. In fact, Frost would have been dead had the guy’s gun not jammed. Frost managed to escape and flag the police, who then determined Frost was the menace and put him in jail for 12 hours. Said Frost, “That evening ended up being the worst evening of my life.” He went pro shortly thereafter.

As CJ Wiley, the billiards professional nicknamed the “Greatest Money Player of the 20th Century,” once said, “High-stakes pool hustling is a dangerous game.”

Certainly, the film and television industry thinks so.

Ever since “Fast Eddie” Felson had his thumbs broken in The Hustler, it’s been a dark day for on-screen pool hustlers.  Johnny Doyle had his hand broken in Poolhall Junkies. Tim Patterson almost lost his life in the Ironside episode “Side Pocket.”  Jim Dooley did lose his life, due to an exploding eightball, in the Shotgun Slade episode “The Pool Shark.”  Tenderloin Tony was shot down in Shooting Gallery, and the hustler Calvin Tate took a bullet to the head in the CSI “Dead Rails” episode.

To this growing list of murdered fictional pool hustlers, we can add Patrick “The Rifle” Lennox, the hustler at the center of the “November 22” episode of Cold Case.

Cold Case – “November 22”

Cold Case was an American police procedural crime drama television series that ran for seven seasons on CBS in the aughts.  It’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production, which is why it feels similar to CSI. “November 22” is from the show’s sixth season and is streaming for free on Roku. The title comes from the day President Kennedy was killed, which is the same day our hustler The Rifle (Eion Bailey) was shot in the back in broad daylight but nobody noticed because their attention was on JFK.

As with each Cold Case episode, a piece of evidence appears that leads the Philadelphia Police Department to reopen a cold homicide investigation. In “November 22,” it’s a .32-caliber snub nose revolver with a spent cartridge, found inside the recently renovated Whitey’s Pool Hall, a venue once famous for “pool, gambling..and being the raid capital of Philly back in the day.” It’s a storied place, where pictures of Minnesota Fats and Wimpy Lassiter used to decorate the walls. 

It’s also where Lennox may have first tangled with the wrong people. Through flashbacks, we learn that the Rifle would “shoot fast and never miss,” and that while he could beat “all the yutzes in Mayberry,” he really wanted to tangle with the infamous Baltimore Red. According to legend, Red would “run 15 racks in Hoboken and then do it again in Skokie. Nobody knew who he was or where he was from;” only that playing him required $2000 a rack.

For all the Rifle’s bluster, he’s a flawed player who “can’t see his third shot.” But that changes when a stakehorse takes an interest in him, saying the Rifle had “the mortal nuts, a stick with no fear.” 

Complementing this cast of characters is Blondie, the Rifle’s “road agent” who would help hook the patsies. She explains to the police, “We saw life as one big choke on all life’s chickens. Patrick was top dog at the table…[but] the life of the hustle catches up with everyone sooner or later.”

Unfortunately, while all the pieces are present, the billiards never really gels within the episode. Patrick seems more like a cornball than a hustler (maybe that’s because I kept thinking he looked like Steve Guttenberg in Police Academy). The billiards lingo feels a bit forced (“the hustler will think I’m some ham-and-egger”). There are a couple of good pool shot montages, but it’s unforgivable that for the final eightball match against Baltimore Red, the balls are racked incorrectly. At least there is a satisfying trick shot at the end in which the Cold Case Squad Commander hits the cue through two balls, pocketing each into a side pocket, and then in the same shot, the force of the cue hits two additional touching balls, slamming each into a corner pocket.

Castle – “Clear and Present Danger”

Another hustler that meets a nasty demise – specifically, the puncturing of his inferior vena cava with a cue stick – is William Ferwick, the long-haired, air guitaring, MIT-educated, pool wiz, who plays on a table emblazoned with a Circle-A anarchy symbol.  He’s the victim at the center of the 2014 “Clear and Present Danger” episode of Castle.

A quick refresher: Castle was an American crime mystery comedy-drama television series that aired on ABC for eight seasons. It paired Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), a best-selling mystery novelist, and Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), a homicide detective, as they solved unusual crimes in New York City.  “Clear and Present Danger” presents a particularly unusual murder, as it appears the killer is invisible or has paranormal powers. 

There is solid comedic and romantic chemistry between the two main characters, so the episode is enjoyable viewing, even if there’s very little billiards to watch. Aside from the opening scene, with Ferwick running the table as David Rolfe’s song “Payback” blares, billiards is only a backstory, as in “Will mostly hustled Wall Street tools for 10 bills a game,” or “The guy was a pool hustler who made a fortune every night at Chelsea Billiards.” 

But, what the episode lacks in billiards, it more than overcompensates with references to quantum cellular equations based on cephalopods, cloaking, underground gaming dens, Lord of the Rings, the camouflage of cuttlefish, and DARPA-like governmental think tanks. “Clear and Present Danger” is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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* I have titled this blog post “Part I” to focus on the dangers of pool hustling as fictitiously portrayed on TV. In my next post, I’ll shift my attention to the more somber, non-fictitious examples of the dangers of pool, as captured in various reality shows.