Ralph Greenleaf

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Ralph Greenleaf (3 November 1899 in Monmouth, Illinois - 15 March 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American professional pool and carom billiards player, a twenty-time World Pocket Billiards Champion, whose ability and charisma dominated the sport during his heyday. His obituary in The New York Times said of Greenleaf, in March 1950: "What Babe Ruth did for baseball, Dempsey did for fighting, Tilden did for tennis...Greenleaf did for pocket billiards." The championships of his era were contested in the game of 14.1 continuous ("straight pool"), but varied in format from contest to contest and were not annual events. Championships were challenge matches between two players often played over several days to relatively high numbers (1,500 points for example).