Clean Sweep

Forty-five years ago in a back room of the Commercial Hotel of Cornwall, N. Y., seven-year-old William Frederick Hoppe stood on a soap box, lifted his arms high to get them over the edge of the table, and with a sidearm stroke sent the Zanzibar ivory balls rolling smoothly over the green baize. Eleven years later Hoppe, using the same queer sidearm stroke, defeated the long-haired, elegant French champion, Maurice Vignaux, in the bespangled ballroom of Paris' Grand Hotel to become at 18 the world's champion 18.1 balkline billiardist.

In the following 34 years Willie Hoppe walked 50,000 miles around billiard tables, played against Nicholas Longworth before President Taft, was the butt of quips by Humorist Samuel Clemens, saw Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and other great sport figures pass their peak, fade out of competition.

Last week in a third-floor room of Bensinger's billiard parlor in Chicago's Loop, chunky, flat-voiced Willie Hoppe, now a balding man of 52, still using his famous sidearm stroke, added the three-cushion billiard championship to the two he already held (18.1 balkline and cushion caroms). He had to compete against ten of the best players in the game, two of whom, during the course of the double round-robin tournament, succeeded in equaling previous records: one for consecutive points, the other for best (shortest) game. Playing calmly and steadily, muttering occasionally, "Come on, pull yourself together," Hoppe won match after match. With his 16th straight win he clinched the title, but still he clicked on. When the play ended Hoppe had suffered no defeats, amassed a record sweep of 20 victories, set a new average of 1. 1 6 1 points per inning.

Explained happy Hoppe, richer by $3,500 in prize money: "It's just like playing golf. You have to keep your head down and follow through."

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