The Geese

[wagnew]

Do you have any stories about Mike "the Geese" Gerace from Maryland who passed away last year? He was a strong player who beat a lot of top players.
Should he be in the one pocket hall of fame?

 

[Grady]

Geese

Geese

Jam,aka Jenny, was with Geese for a number of years and she can tell you many a story. She now is with Keith.

 

[Frank Wojo]

Geese-Previous Thread

Geese-Previous Thread

http://onepocket.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1571&highlight=wedge

It was dated 5-29-07 and started by Wedge.

 

[JAM]

Do you have any stories about Mike "the Geese" Gerace from Maryland who passed away last year? He was a strong player who beat a lot of top players.
Should he be in the one pocket hall of fame?

Geese's best game was one-pocket, no question about it, and he was also a good one-handed player as well. I have never seen anyone draw their rock a full table length one-handed, without the cue ever touching the table.

Geese's greatest claim to fame, according to him, was coming in third place when he was 19 years old at Johnston City. He was proud as punch and boasted about this third-place finish, saying, "I was third in the world when I was 19."

Geese also won the Maryland State Championship several times, usually alternating with "Cigar Tom" Vanover. The last year that the Maryland State 9-Ball Championship was held happened in Silver Spring, Maryland, at the old Champions. I ran the tournament, my first experience, and what a nightmare. I had no idea the matches would take so long, and the players were moaning and whining, the owner Richard Allen was upset that he was losing table time, and me, I was just doing the best I could. However, Mike Sigel, who claimed to live in Towson, won the event. Geese was not a happy camper, losing that tournament.

However, Geese was definitely not a tournament soldier. He was one of the last of a dying breed, the American road player. He traveled from coast to coast looking for action, and he got played. When he went to California, he met a very young Keith McCready, which in a strange way is how I met Keith, about 25 years later. Keith was Geese's steer in California, and the two of them hit it off great.

During one of Geese's road trips, he was playing somewhere in Louisiana in a one-room pool hall with no windows and only one door going in and out. Apparently, a couple of scoundrels got wind there was a lot action one evening at this pool room, and they held it up at gunpoint. Everybody was ordered to give up their monies. Geese always kept a secret stash of cash in his sock, and for whatever reason, he didn't give the gunmen his bankroll.

When they discovered it in his sock, they beat him up horribly, so bad that his brother had to fly to Louisiana from Maryland to bring him back home. He suffered a terrible beating and, in my opinion, he never recovered from it. Geese was diagnosed after this incident with schizophrenia, after many months of medical treatment for his injuries. Not many people knew this about him, and he suffered some awful bouts throughout his entire life.

Geese was an old-school player and practiced old-school pool etiquette. When he was winning and you were with him, you were in for a jelly roll. I have many fond memories of road trips with Geese. He had more heart than a lot of players today when it came to gambling. Pool was his whole life, and though young'ns may have never heard of Geese today, he definitely makes up the very fabric of American pool.

I don't have any digital pictures of Geese, but here's one of Geese and a young me in the upper right-hand corner.

These pics were taken at the 1986 Maryland State Championship. That's me handing Mike Sigel his trophy. There's Cigar Tom, runner-up, on the bottom left, and that's Teddy Bear Wilson on the bottom right who came in third. Man, I sure did used to have a head of hair.

JAM

 

[JAM]

Couple more pics

Couple more pics

When posting the previous pictures, I decided to try to gather all my non-digital pictures to take them to the photo store to have them digitized. I came across a few more Geese pictures from the 1986 Maryland State Championship, won by Mike Sigel. These will stir up some memories from the locals in my area.

The top left is Geese giving me a smooch! LOL

For the locals, the middle top is "Big Ed," which was Geese's best friend ever. God, I used to love to see Big Ed barking, especially when his teeth would chatter. Those who knew him know exactly what I mean. That's me standing behind Big Ed, always trying to conceal my well-rounded figure!

The top right is me speaking with Mike Sigel's girlfriend at the time. I think her name was Christina. She had a few small roles in the "The Color of Money." She was the waitress in a diner, as well as a rack girl in Atlantic City. She was really, really sweet.

There's a smiling Geese on the bottom left. That's the way I like to remember him.

And then there's me, once again, giving Sigel his 1986 Maryland State Championship trophy.

I still can't get over my full head of hair. Man, I miss the good old days!

I've got some more Geese pics, but I just gotta find 'em. I'll post 'em up when I locate them.

JAM

 

[JAM]

Hey, looky here...

Hey, looky here...

Wow, I just found a picture I had forgotten that I had. I sure do love looking at old pictures.

I don't know when it was taken, but I think it was in the late '80s. This is me and guess who!

JAM

 

[JG-in-KY]

Great pictures, Jennie! Mike did marry Chris and they were married for quite a few years.

 

[Pelican]

I'll be danged, he did have some hair at one time

Pel

 

[JAM]

Today is Geese's birthday. He would have been 57 years old.

Rest in peace, Geese! You are not forgotten!

JAM