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Hall of fame billiards12/30/2023 ![]() ![]() Wielding an ivory-detailed cue made especially for her in 1965 by renowned cuemaker George Balabushka, at 5 and 6 years of age she would practice straight pool to 50 points after family dinners with her father's encouragement but not participation. I felt uncomfortable, and besides, girls didn't go in those days." In later years Balukas explained that she "almost never went to the pool hall and if I did go, I didn't play. Balukas's introduction to play was at 4 years of age, not on one of her father's tables but on a 4-1⁄2 by 9 foot pool table in the cellar of her childhood home, purchased by her parents to keep her four billiards-playing brothers out of local pool rooms. Jean's father, Albert Balukas, along with his partner, professional player Frank McGown, was the proprietor of a forty-eight-table pool hall called the Ovington Lounge in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York. She quit the sport amidst controversy in 1988 while at the height of her ability, due to a dispute over her conduct in a match at the Brunswick WPBA World 9-Ball Championship of that year. Balukas has won over 100 professional tournaments, as well as a record streak of 16 first-place tournament finishes in a row, and was the only woman at the time to compete with men in professional play. Open Straight Pool Championship titles and four WPBA U.S. īalukas won five WPBA World Straight Pool Championship titles, the WPBA World 9-Ball Championship, eight BCA U.S. ![]() From that early start, Balukas completely dominated women's professional pool during the 1970s and 1980s. Open straight pool championship, and placed 4th and 3rd respectively in the following two U.S. At just 9 years old she placed 5th in the 1969 U.S. īalukas was considered a prodigy, coming to the public's attention first at 6 years of age at a pool exhibition held at New York City's Grand Central Terminal and thereafter appearing on television, including on CBS's primetime television show, I've Got a Secret. Described as a "trailblazer, a child prodigy, a loner who rebelled against dress codes for women-the pool equivalent of Billie Jean King", she is a five-time Billiards Digest Player of the Year, was the youngest inductee into the BCA Hall of Fame and the second woman given the honor, and was ranked fifteenth on Billiard Digest Greatest Players of the Century. At least through the 1990s, when Allison Fisher began her ascendancy, Balukas was widely acknowledged as the sole candidate for greatest female player ever. Jean Balukas (born June 28, 1959) is an American pool player from Brooklyn, New York, and considered one of the greatest players of all time. ![]() Jean Balukas performing in an exhibition in Grand Central Terminal in 1966 ![]()
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