Can any game be mentioned in which there is such a lack of standardization as is the case with billiards? Here is a great national pastime, with two governing bodies, three sets of rules, three kinds of balls, and tables and appliances made with little or no regard to standardization, except in so far as the occasional use of pocket templates is concerned.
In the different sets of rules points are omitted by some that are covered by others and some essential points are not covered at all. With the three kinds of balls, widely differing results are obtained in actual play, and this even may also apply to balls of a given kind of manufacture when one set differs from another in weight or other essential feature. Full-size tables are not always constructed in the same proportion, the pocket openings vary both as to size and shouldering on different tables and sometimes even on the same table; cues are any weight from 14 to 20 ounces and differently balanced; and cushions vary in resiliency as much as cloths do in thickness and nap.
If the day of single control in billiards is not yet, and championships must be played and other things done under different auspices, one would think that at least the various rules as to the game might be codified by common arrangement.
This is a point that affects the ordinary amateur player vitally and the present anomalies, inconsistencies, and contradictions irritate him not a little. Scarcely a week passes in which The Billiard Monthly is not asked by some subscriber for a ruling as to this or that difficulty arising in the course of play, and not infrequently the cause of disagreement betwixt two players is found to be referable to the circumstance that one player has consulted one set of rules and his opponent another. Need the case in favour of codification be further carried?
In advocating a standard billiard ball one feels to be on less secure ground and the difficulties in the way of a realization of this ideal are obviously greater than in the case of the rules, as important commercial considerations are involved. The manufacture of the ivory, bonzoline, and crystalate balls represents separate enterprises, and each of the three classes of balls has strong support amongst the followers of the game. Ultimate standardization could only be the result of the abolition of ivory as a playing medium and the amalgamation of the bonzoline and crystalate business interests, and, as we have already said, this represents—at the present moment at all events—an ideal that is impossible of attainment.
The same cannot be said as to the present variations in table proportions, cloths, and cushions, and there would seem to be no logical or business reason why all tables should not be built on the uniform two-square principle— the length between cushions being exactly twice the width —and with pockets to standard templates which should never vary on tables of equal size. On the smaller tables the pocket openings and balls should naturally bear the fame relation to each other as on the full-size, and in all cases where composition balls were used there should at least be no difficulty in fixing an invariable diameter. With ivories the same uniformity cannot be obtained because of the adjustments that are necessary from time to time. As regards the cloths and the cushions the question of quality and cost comes in as a powerful factor, but here again some improvement might be effected by the discouragement of the startling variations as to nap and resiliency that are at present observable.
Perhaps the individual preferences and prejudices of players operate more powerfully in the matter of cue selection than in any other branch of the game, and it may at once be said that if a player is not thoroughly suited with a cue the fault lies with himself and with no arbitrary conditions or circumstances such as rule in connection with some of the other accessories of the game. There are players who like heavy cues and others who are partial to very light ones. Some prefer one balance and some another. Others, again, like a thick butt, or broad tip, or both, whilst the more slender butt or the finer tip have also their special votaries.
At the same time it would, in the opinion of many, be a distinct gain to billiards if all cues were uniformly proportioned as to length, weight, substance, thickness, taper, and balance. If only big men used light cues and small men heavy ones, or vice versa there might be a case for difference, but the physical make of the cueist has nothing to do with his cue selection, and it is a matter of fancy or habit and nothing more. Meanwhile the result is disastrous, as anyone who tries to play with a cue of different weight, balance, and grip from that to which he has accustomed himself, knows from painful experience.
To sum up we should like to say that the game of billiards is intrinsically so difficult and beset by so many snares and pitfalls that it is a pity that these difficulties should be arbitrarily increased by lack of uniformity in the playing media. When the student has grasped, as the result of long and dolorous experience, how easily a stroke can be missed by inattention to any one of a dozen necessary principles, it is more than a little hard upon him that he should have to face, in addition, except when playing on a familiar table or under familiar conditions, a succession of physical difficulties, many of which need not be infused into the game at all. Ideal standardization may not be yet, but if ruling bodies and manufacturers would address themselves without, delay to such improvements in the desired direction as are both obvious and feasible they would earn the gratitude of all to whom the game of billiards appeals in its scientific as well as in its recreative aspect.