MIKE PESCA, host:
Speaking of the other day - the other day, I heard a story about Kid Delicious, real name Danny Basavich, this portly pool player. And I said, wait, I know this guy. I saw him cracking wise as he cracked racks of balls in a tournament on ESPN. But I had no idea just how compelling a dude he was. And it all becomes clear in a book written by L. Jon Wertheim, it's called "Running the Table."
Here's a part of that book.
(Reading) Danny - sorry - pool was, in fact, Danny's therapy, his sanctuary. Screw the bullies at Manalapan High, screw the fat jokes, screw the girls who didn't give him the time of day. The maple pool cue - cue felt like a pistol in his hands, instilling in him power and self-confidence.
His parents relived their son's mental health, and he'd seem to have stabilized. Doris and Dave Basavich once asked Danny to explain why pool? Danny stuttered and mumbled and then replied, it makes me feel alive.
Thank you, L. Jon Wertheim, for those words. But now we have the real Kid Delicious, maybe the best, very maybe the most interesting pool hustler going. How are you?
KID DELICIOUS (Professional Pool Player): How's it going, guys? It's a pleasure to be with you.
PESCA: Well, let me ask you. So we're identifying you as a pool hustler. Do you like the term? Is it accurate? What - do you prefer to be called something else?
KID DELICIOUS: I guess I don't mind being called the pool hustler. I mean, I'd like to be called like a professional pool player. But a hustler is fine.
PESCA: You'd like to be called the champion, I guess, yeah.
Well, I wanted to ask you that. I mean, if you're a hustler, it means - it implies a few things. Like you could go into a pool hall, scare up a game, kind of trick people who might not know who you are and take their money. But here you have a book, and you're on this show even though no one's seeing you. But there's some videos of you online. Is that - are those days all over? Is your cover blown and you can't scare up those games and really hustle the guys who don't know you anymore.
KID DELICIOUS: Yeah, yeah, for sure. My cover is totally blown. But for, you know, for about my 10-year run, I - you know, from about 17 to about like 26 or somewhere around there, I got to travel the whole country, every single state, except for Hawaii and Alaska. And I won over half a million dollars playing pool. And most of the time, nobody knew who they were playing.
(Soundbite of laughter)
PESCA: I heard - we heard a little bit in Jon Wertheim's words that you were a depressed, troubled kid - a kid - pool saved you. And in the book, there is a great story about your early hustles where you'd go over to Rutgers or maybe Princeton, you'd buy a sweatshirt, you'd smear some chocolate cake on your lips. And you'd - the whole point was to make yourself look like an easy mark to the frat boys. Did it work?
KID DELICIOUS: Absolutely. I mean, at that time of my life, I was a hustler for sure. I like - in pool, the one lousy thing about pool was when I was young, and I was coming up in the world and I was about 17 years old, I wanted to just become a professional.
PESCA: Right.
KID DELICIOUS: And become like the best pool player in the world. But the sad thing is, the money on the professional, you know, billiards tour, is very poor. And all the old timers that are professionals in New Jersey where I grew up playing pool, they all told me that I better go on the road and go get - go do some gambling and go make a lot of big money first before I go playing on the pro tour.
PESCA: Was it sort of great minor leagues? I mean, because you had to have the mental fortitude to not only play great pool, but to present yourself as something that you weren't and fight back from adversity?
KID DELICIOUS: Absolutely, absolutely. It's actually the best minor leagues possible. The - if you're a traveling all the time, and - playing on different pool tables, with different balls, you know, with different equipment, event the temperature of the pool room could change the way that the table plays by rolling fast or rolling slow. Or you'd get out of the pools (unintelligible) you know what I mean there?
PESCA: Right, yeah.
KID DELICIOUS: There's a lot of that variables that come into play and if every day, you're playing on something different and you got to keep on getting used to it, it's really difficult. And people don't realize what you have to do when you leave your hometown to go play pool for money.
PESCA: Walk me through the basics of the hustle. As I understand it, it's basically appear weak, convince your opponent that you're weak for a while until the money gets up there, then you play strong. Are there - there must be a lot more wrinkles than that, though.
KID DELICIOUS: Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, like the hustle about the college, I mean, there are more famous stories, is I went over to Rutgers College in New Jersey…
PESCA: Yeah.
KID DELICIOUS: …and I - and like in high school, you know what I mean, I had a lot of depression and I didn't get along with all the big-time bullies. You know, they gave me a lot of times about being overweight, stuff like that. I used to…
ALISON STEWART, host:
You're not that overweight. Let me just stop - let me stop - I've been looking you up online. You're not that overweight, Kid.
(Soundbite of laughter)
STEWART: Just letting you know.
KID DELICIOUS: What did you say?
STEWART: You're not that overweight. I mean, just that the conversations. Like the portly this, I just want to point that out there.
KID DELICIOUS: Well thank - thank you.
PESCA: Well, let's just say I think - I think you move gracefully. Let's put it that way.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KID DELICIOUS: Thank you very much. I mean, I - a lot of good players, they - I'm an athlete even though I'm a 300-pound athlete. I've been told that I move very well, and I'm able to get around really well for being a big man. And I appreciate that guys, it was really nice of you.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KID DELICIOUS: And it's like - I did some crazy things because I - with my depression in dealing with all the bullies in high school and stuff like that. When I was young, I really wasn't good at dealing with it, and my depression got so bad that I didn't even want to live anymore. I just - I couldn't even get out of bed.
PESCA: Yeah, and pool saved you as Wertheim said.
KID DELICIOUS: Pool saved me. As soon as I started playing pool at about 13 years old, I was the happiest kid in the world. I mean, I went from not being able to read - able to talk to anybody, even my mom and dad.
PESCA: Yeah.
KID DELICIOUS: You know, I'll not even be here anymore to get up and brush my teeth.
PESCA: Was it instantaneous like the first time you picked up a stick? Did you suddenly say, you know, the world makes sense to me?
KID DELICIOUS: It really did. You're absolutely right. It's unbelievable how much it helped me with my depression. I was - the biggest problem is I wasn't able to do anything in my life before that and get into that special place called the zone, that all of us in life all want to find, whether you're a - whether you're in a match or whether you are even just drinking a glass of water or something like that.
PESCA: Yeah, but when you're doing something, it can be very physically exerting. I mean, I remember when, you know, like when I'm playing cards or when I was a kid and I used to play sports like football. I mean, that's it. You don't - you block out everything and you just totally lose yourself in the experience. And if you're good at it, if you had any trouble in the rest of your life, that's so beside the point, because what's important is the experience right in front of you.
KID DELICIOUS: You're absolutely right. And I had a lot of trouble with blowing on the past and blowing on the future, which is a very big problem with depression. I was always dwelling on, you know, some guy that made fun of my weight or some guy that made fun of the way I talked. Or, you know, different things like that. I'd always be worrying about it all day long, and just put me in a deep depression.
But as soon as I found pool, I started to learn how to be in, you know, get myself right in reality with life. And get my - I would play for three or four hours and not think about anything but the pool ball one at a time. And I thought to myself as the happiest guy in the world after that. I had just - I mean, I'm not going to say it made my depression go away, totally, but it makes me so happy and it was unbelievable.
PESCA: So you know, the other thing it does that makes you turn the tables on some of the bullies before you were talking about going to Rutgers, the exact kind of guys who would be teasing you in high school those - how would you wind up taking their money when you first encountered them on the pool tables?
KID DELICIOUS: Well, one of the hustles that I want to get back to with Rutgers University. It was one of my famous hustles where I went and I went to the, you know, where you can buy clothes and stuff like that. And I bought myself a Rutgers sweater and some Rutgers sneakers they even had. And I got myself a football Rutgers hat and I - they had a - there's a little pool room in Rutgers that has about 10 pool tables and like a little communal cafeteria and arcade.
And I overheard that there was a lot of kids there gambling. You know, a lot of young kids about 17 years old at the time. And they were - I heard there was a lot cocky kids where their families had a lot of money or they - you know, the guys that used to pick on me when I was a kid.
PESCA: The exact guys from Manalapan High School, yeah.
KID DELICIOUS: Absolutely. And I - at the time, and I've never been in a fight in my life and - whenever them guys will give me a hard time, I never stood up for myself at all. And that was probably one of the problems I had with depression for sure, you know. And with pool, I brought myself a piece of chocolate cake at the cafeteria. And I made sure I had myself like $10,000 - big roll of money. And I walked myself into the little pool at Rutgers. And the first thing I would do is I'd buy a Coca-Cola right at the front desk with a big pile of hundred dollar bills and drop them all over the floor.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KID DELICIOUS: And immediately, you'd see everybody looking at me and saying, look at this kid. You know, he doesn't know what he's doing. I - believe me, the money would be all over. People would be helping me pick up my money.
PESCA: So was that - is that a little over the top as you look back on it? I mean, when you tell the story, it seems so obvious. If I wrote it in a screenplay, it'd have to be like, oh, tone it down a little.
KID DELICIOUS: I know what you're saying. It's really funny. Is - these guys and anyone who gambles in pool, they have such a big ego.
PESCA: Yeah.
KID DELICIOUS: And, you know, everyone's cocky. Everybody's taking beat the next guy. Nobody is afraid, like it - it's really amazing. I mean, you'd be surprised. You're right. Sometimes I had to tone it down.
PESCA: Yeah.
KID DELICIOUS: But with these guys, they didn't know what hit them, and I was able to do a lot of silly things like, you know, with the chocolate cake, I smeared a little on my cheek.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KID DELICIOUS: And I was eating this chocolate cake, sitting down, talking to them, and, you know, acted really silly. You know, acting like the tough fat guy that they really don't know too much, that his parents just won the lottery and they just gave me 10 grand this week for my allowance.
PESCA: Last question, do you think pool has a chance to be the new poker in terms of a sport that a lot of people play and watch on TV?
KID DELICIOUS: Absolutely, absolutely. Pool is moving really good right now. And it's trying to improve. Its biggest problem right now is its having trouble getting some of the biggest sponsors like poker was able to get.
PESCA: Right.
KID DELICIOUS: And, do you know what it is, as poker, you know, it's a lot luckier of a game. There is great players that do win all the time. But with poker, it's everyone's putting up that big entry, like they'll get like 500 guys put up like $500 a piece and then all that money is pretty much pooled up and that's the prize part. And in pool tournaments, I mean, the entry might be $500, but because it's a very skilled game and it's not - there's really not a whole lot of luck involved, (unintelligible) playing people.
PESCA: Right. It just takes so much more practice. I mean, poker does too, but, you know, a guy like you have to practice so many hours and the random guy can't come off the street.
But, Danny, we've got to leave it there, but I want to thank you very much for talking to us and being the inspiration for this book by L. Jon Wertheim called "Running the Table."
Danny Basavich. Thanks a lot, Danny.
KID DELICIOUS: Thanks a lot, it's great having - being on with you guys.
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