McKeon Post Pool Team Propelled By Posthumous Player

By Lisa E. Crowley
The BrocktonPost
AVON—When members of Dorchester’s John P. McKeon Post #13 won the South Shore Pool League Championship last season to become the first team in the league’s history to “run the table” and go undefeated for the season and at the same time set the record for most consecutive championships at four, one member Kenny Blair may have been missing in body, but their beloved teammate was there in spirit.
“We had his shirt on a chair through the whole season and during the playoffs,” said his childhood friend Eddie DiLorenzo, an East Boston native who has lived in Braintree and now in Weymouth since 1998.
“I know he helped me in those playoffs that night when we won. He was the difference,” DiLorenzo said.
Blair, a Revere resident who DiLorenzo has known from kindergarten in East Boston, died in January, 2009 at 55 of leukemia. Blair--pictured above in 1996--was a member of the team for three of the four championships.
Blair's death was a year before the team went on the undefeated run to win the 2009-2010 league championship for the fourth straight time and members believe the shirt and Blair's memory were an inspiration for the team to set two records the season following his death.
The undefeated season is unprecedented in the South Shore League’s 37-year history and the fourth consecutive championship by Post #13 is a feat that bests Braintree Moose Lodge’s three championships.
To say the team has been hot over the last four years is an understatement.
The McKeon Post came close to an undefeated season during the 2008-2009 campaign when Blair was playing. The team only lost one match that season and went on to win its third consecutive championship.
Richard Zaccaro, a Brockton resident who plays for Post #13, said the team’s winning ways may make it seem as if the Post #13 is rolling over teams.
He said that is not the case.
“There is a lot of talent and a lot of skill in this league. It’s a really competitive league,” Zaccaro said. “Sometimes it’s just one ball. Sometimes it’s just luck. You have to have luck,” he said.
Post #13’s success rate hasn’t gone unnoticed by other teams and while there is a lot of friendly rivalry among teams, the McKeon Post’s undefeated season isn’t likely to hold through the 2010-2011.
“Who says they’re champions. They’re not champions. That was last year,” said Glen Cabbage, (Pictured below shaking hands) a member of one of two teams out of the Avon V.F.W. when Post #13 took on Avon in the first match of the season in September.
Like the New England Patriots and other teams who have won numerous titles, Post #13 opened the season with a target on their heads—a black and white circle like the 8-ball that is the target of the league’s matches.
“Everyone’s gunning for us,” Zaccaro said.
One week before the All-Star break which will be held Wednesday Nov. 24 and features the best two players from each team, Post #13 is in third place, but within striking distance of first place.
Post #13 began this season with an undefeated streak that lasted two matches.
In the third week, they lost to a new team in the league, Weymouth Elks, a team that features Herb Whiffen, a Braintree resident who is known in the area for making custom pool cues for area players.
The South Shore Pool League, which formed in 1973, currently has 14 teams who play each other every Wednesday night from September to February.
Unlike many leagues that have moved to faster games like 9-ball, South Shore Pool League plays straight pool with partners.
During play one team has solid balls, the other stripes and it’s a race to clear the table and sink the 8-ball, but it’s not bush league—players have to call their shots and while allowed to play defense—cannot cross the line and be called out for a “Safe Shot,” or what is loosely called Chelsea pool, when a player does not make an honest attempt at his own ball because it is blocked in some way.
Safeties are not allowed and if an opponent believes a player has intentionally played a safety, the opponent calls out the player. There is no argument if a safe shot is called. The penalty is an automatic loss of game.
A second is a two-game suspension, and a third or any subsequent safe shots by a player is suspension for the remainder of the season.
Players said being called out for a safe shot is rare—but it does happen.
Each week teams play the best of 10 games to win the week's match.
Teams in the league include Braintree Moose Lodge #413, Randolph Elks, and Abington Knights of Columbus. Some of the teams, like Post #13 and Avon V.F.W. , have “A” teams and “B” teams.
A and B teams play in either the north and south divisions of the league and are not divided so much by skill level as by which lodge, V.F.W. or Legion post has more players.
A teams play B teams every week.
Each team recruits its own members and like the McKeon Post, many are friends who go back to childhood, military service, numerous jobs and employment and schools.
Post #13’s Zaccaro said some may see the game of pool or the league as just a way to get out of the house and have drinks with the guys--which it is--but it is also a great game that requires skill and concentration.
“At least my wife knows where I am, what I’m doing and who I’m with,” Zaccaro said.
An all-male league, it’s also a venue where the guys talk about work, the family, kids, and past escapades at various parties such as Post #13 player Donald “Noodles” Newell’s Halloween extravaganza dressed as a vampire and coming out of a coffin at Dorchester’s Penney Post.
“You should have been there—I should have been there,” Newell (Pictured below on table) said laughing as his teammates recalled how hysterical it was.
Al Alsopp, a longtime Brockton resident who is co-captain of Avon V.F.W.'s B team, said the guys in the league are rivals, but most have played against each other, or in some cases been on the same teams, and it’s all in good fun.
“There’s a lot of camaraderie,” Alsopp said.
However, Alsopp said, none of the teams are giving in to Post #13’s winning mystique.
“You always have an advantage on your home table,” Alsopp said. “We want to kick their butts,” he said.
Tossing back drinks during the matches is a part of the fun of the league, but many players don’t drink alcohol because it throws off their game and while many players are amateurs looking to learn and meet new people, others like Eddie DiLorenzo have been playing pool all their lives.
Nicknamed “Fast Eddie” after the famed Paul Newman character in pool-shark movies “The Hustler” and “Color of Money,” DiLorenzo, players said, is one of the best, if not the best, player in the league. “The only way he loses is if he beats himself,” said Braintree resident and teammate David Hurley.
An East Boston native, DiLorenzo, 55, said his father, known as Joe D., owned a pool room and he literally grew up playing pool.
DiLorenzo is an admirer of old-timers like Willie Mosconi, who was the king of pool from the 1920s to the 1950s and was the technical advisor on Newman’s movie “The Hustler.”
Once, when DiLorenzo was 13 his father brought him to a pool exhibition featuring 9-Ball great and Billiard Congress of America Hall of Famer Allen Hopkins, who ruled the tables from the late 1960s to the 1990s.
DiLorenzo (pictured in above photo in center with Richard Zaccaro holding pool stick and teammate John Hardiman at left) said Hopkins picked him out of the crowd to go head-to-head with the champion in two games of 9-ball.
At age 13, DiLorenzo beat Hopkins in the first game.
DiLorenzo said he would have won the second game, but Hopkins interrupted his concentration at crucial times.
“In the second game there was a lot of table talk,” DiLorenzo said.
While many of the South Shore League’s players aren’t as good as DiLorenzo, many like Avon V.F.W.’s Alsopp believe it doesn’t matter who is more highly skilled or who has won four straight championships, because like in football, you have to sink the shots and play the games to walk away with a win.
“On any given Wednesday any of these teams can beat the other,” Alsopp said.
Any organizations wishing to join the league can contact President Jim Casey at 617-838-9636 or via email at caseyaviation@comcast.net.
For more information about the league, click here for South Shore Pool League.
Interested parties are invited to join players and the league during the All-Star game at the Abington V.F.W. next Wednesday, Nov. 24 at 7:30 p.m. There will be food and a cash bar.