Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 311, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1918 — HOPPE “REGULAR GUY” [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOPPE “REGULAR GUY”

Champion Biliiardist Suits Hisj Game to Surroundings. It Not Particular Under What Con(|l«j tions He Plays—As a Player He la Absolutely Superior to Any Living Man. Willie Hoppe, it has been said, i» the most highly developed, the most nearly perfect world’s champion that ever lived. . Every sport has had its world’s champions. We have had John B, Sullivan, Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, Jim Jeffries, Joe Gans, Battling Nelson, Terry McGovern, Abe Attell, Frank Gotch, McLoaghlin, Ty Cobb, Mike Kelly, but not one, pot a single man Jack of them, has stood as preeminently In his particular profession or sport as Hoppe does in his, or as pre-eminently as he probably wilt continue to stand until his whiskers touch the tops of his $25 patent leather shoes. . Some there are who think Hoppe abnormal. Nothing is farther from the truth. Hoppe, in the parlance of sport,, is a “regular guy.” Away from the billiard table he ls ho different than any other twenty-nine-year-old young man, excepting, perhaps, that he is much better looking than the average, Hoppe isn’t particular under what conditions he plays. He prefers, of course, to have comfortable surroundings, But if the room is a trifle cold he figures that it is no colder for him than it is fcfr the man he is playing, If the cushions are too hard, or the table otherwise defective, he figures the same l way—that the other fellow is as much handicapped as he. In brief, Hoppe will not admit that conditions can be such as to preclude him from playing in good form, or that any situation may be conceived where*

by he, providing that his hands or feet are not tied, cannot show superiority over the man he plays. A dozen years ago there was a floclc of billiard marvels. Every year almost the title changed hands and the game had a new world’s champion. Then came Hoppe. And Hoppe was so good that nobody, from the time he defeated the French marvel, Maurice Vlgneaux, in 1906, had ever disputed his championship. Billiards has been changed time and again to handicap Hoppe, because, argued the manufacturers of billiard room supplies, it hurt the game to haye as champion a man so absolutely superior to all others. But every time the game was changed Hoppe took up: the new games and played it so much better than anybody else that it was quickly dropped.

Hoppe Demonstrating a Shot.