Keith Mc Cready - Early Days

Early Days

McCready was born in Elmhurst, Illinois. He realized he had billiards talent at the age of nine, after his father introduced him to bumper pool, and he soon began hustling his two older brothers out of their allowance money. He initially had to stand on a box to reach the height of the table, and developed his unusual stroke while still a boy.

He was reportedly habituated to gambling by his divorced father when, during custodial visits, Keith and his brothers would each be given US$20 and required to play various games with him, "usually until he had won his money back."

According to McCready, as a student in Trident Middle School in Anaheim, California, he asked his gym teacher to hold his money for him while he attended the first-period class. An established gambler at a young age, McCready had won a large amount gambling the night before at the horse racetrack. He was afraid to leave the money at home, for fear that his two older brothers would help themselves to it, and he did not want to leave it in his school locker for the same reason. When the instructor saw that it was the sum of $14,000 in gambling winnings, McCready was suspended from school, "for having too much money". Danny Diliberto was living in Bellflower, California, during this time. He learned about the incident when he asked why young McCready was hanging in the pool room instead of attending school. The school officials contacted the California Department of Social Services to investigate his home environment, which had deteriorated after the death of his mother. His father had developed problems with alcoholism. Placed in foster care, Keith was removed from his family home and made a ward of the State. The owner of his neighborhood pool room, Bob's Billiards, liked McCready and successfully petitioned to adopt him, providing him a permanent home until he reached legal age.

While growing up in Bellflower, he acquired a proficiency in many pool games from legendary players such as Ronnie Allen, Richie Florence, Allen Hopkins, Jimmy Reid, Buddy Hall, Irving Crane, Larry Lisciotti, Jimmy Mataya, Luther Lassiter, Billy Incardona, Joe Balsis, Danny DiLiberto, Larry "Boston Shorty" Johnson, Lou Butera and "Champagne Eddie" Kelly. As a teenager in California, his mentor was an older California player named Cole Dixon, who showed McCready how to survive as a pool player.

McCready as a young boy was inspired by the grandiose spirit of Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone Jr., when he made an unexpected visit to his neighborhood pool room. Upon departure, Minnesota Fats, sharply dressed in a three-piece suit, flashed a large wad of cash and said to the patrons, "Boys, the only difference between me and everybody else is that everybody else drives around in a Volkswagen, and Minnesota Fats drives around in a Duesenberg." A decade later, after several tournament wins in California, McCready traveled to St. Louis to compete in a pool tournament, and Minnesota Fats was in attendance. When he recognized McCready as the young up-and-coming player from California, he began to woof at him, and the two of them put on a show and entertained a packed house of onlookers.

McCready acquired the nickname "Keither with the Ether" as a teenager, but was considered an old-school player who was fast and very accurate at the table. "Nobody beat Keith...He was a terrific young player...the most perfect pool you ever saw," says Grady Mathews, "one of those pool phenoms that comes along every now and then."