LAP League

A long time pool league player passed away recently and it was a reminder that I still hadn’t brought myself to make a post about my dear friend Dan Patterson’s passing yet. I’m not sure when I would be ready so I guess now is as good of a time as any.

Dan Patterson was a guy I looked up to when I was a teenager. He was one of the older guys I would see talking in the circle of great pool players conversing in the pool halls. When you’re young, you just sit around those guys soaking up everything being said hanging on their every word. I didn’t see Dan shooting around all the time like the other guys so I asked Concrete John if Dan was a good player. John started staking me when I was just a teenager and treated me like I was one of his own kids so I always knew I could trust John to tell me the truth. He told me Dan was a good pool player but he didn’t play the pool games like 8-ball and 9-ball anywhere near the level he played bumper pool. I remember thinking that was neat being one of the better bumper pool players around town but then I realized it went way beyond that as John told me he was the best bumper pool player in the country. I enjoyed sitting back listening as John told me all the stories. Dan beat everybody playing bumper pool and there were only two players in the country that were touted to be in the ranks with Dan. As far as those two great players, Dan beat them both. One player was from New Orleans, I believe, and the other was from Evansville, IN. He beat the guy in New Orleans every time he ever played him. He beat the guy from Evansville on a table in Louisville but then got beat by the guy when he went to Evansville and played him on his home table. Dan ended up getting some good practice time to learn that table a little better before he played him again and Dan beat him in their third match up. Dan won 2 out of the 3 times he played the guy and Dan was the only player to ever beat that guy on that guy’s home table. That’s how you remove any doubt that you really are the best.

Dan was always kind to me even when I was young and a nobody. I’m not saying I ever became a somebody but you don’t get a lot of attention when you’re just a kid, but Dan still treated me great. At first I thought it was because I was the same age as one of his son’s Michael, who I became close friends with along with his wife, so I thought maybe I reminded him of his son. Then the more I was around Dan, I came to realize that he was just a truly genuine person and was simply a great guy in a pool world full of deadbeats and cutthroats.

As I continued progressing in my pool career, I would still talk with Dan every chance I could. When his sons started to take on more of their family business, this opened up a little more time for Dan. I was fortunate enough to get to spend some of that time with him whether it was at Ohio Valley racetrack or at a pool hall/bar. I became very close with Dan over those years and his friendship meant more to me than even his kids probably ever knew. Dan had an incredible presence and I could feel him pulling for me as he was always in my corner whether I was playing a tournament match or playing some guy betting high or simply trying to run my own business with the pool league. His kindness and support meant a great deal to both me and my wife over the years as he was one of our very favorite people ever!

I’ve never heard anyone have a single bad thing to say about Dan and that’s extremely rare. He was a lot of things to a lot of people, but to me, he was my dear friend and a man I always looked up to and admired. If you were looking to do things right, all you had to do was watch Dan and replicate how he did it. Life keeps us busy and gets in the way sometimes so we don’t get to spend as much time as we want with the people we care about. That still doesn’t change how you feel about people. I will always remember my friend for the great person he was and the impact he has had on me throughout decades of my life.

Rest easy, Papa Bear. 😢

Porter, a long time pool league player, passed away recently. The visitation details are in his obituary below.

David Porter Hall - View Obituary & Service Information Share Memories and Support the Family.

Today is a sad day the world has lost another good man. Steve was always fun to play, unless I was being distracted by others and taking to long. 🤣 Always enjoyed talking with him about pool and family! Prayers to Steve’s family! RIP Steve, you will be missed by many!

Even though we aren’t running any divisions currently, we still look at our players as family. It saddens us to report that Steve Pharo passed away last night/this morning.

We truly enjoyed being around Steve. He loved pool and was always a tough competitor. He played over 300 LAP League matches and won at one game or more in over 90% of those matches. He was never easy to beat but if you were able to beat him, you knew you played well.

Rest easy, Steve. I’m sure you’re enjoying some pool with several of our friends.

Our apologies as this will be a lengthy post. If you would like to skip over our history and background, feel free to jump down to the announcement section.

History and background:

For those of you who know Dana and I personally, you know how much we love and care about pool. It’s been a huge part of my life since I was a little kid and Dana was a teenager. It’s been a big part of our relationship and has helped forge incredible friendships that we love and cherish to this day. We even had five 9’ Diamond tables brought in and set up at our wedding reception (way back in 2006) for guests to shoot on!

We love pool and we dig people that dig pool. That’s the reason we started the Local Amateur Pool League in 2009. We wanted to couple my engineering degree in mathematics and computer science with our passion for pool while leaning on our expertise. We developed a software system and built a league we would want to play in ourselves if it wasn’t our league with local payouts and the most accurate handicapping system. There will always be people trying to beat the system but I still stand firm to this day and will state openly that we developed the most accurate handicapping system for a pool league.

We played our first divisions in April 2009 starting with 22 8-ball teams and expanded from there. Starting in the first season of 2010, we introduced our 9-ball format playing real 9-ball that incorporated the winning of games to determine the winners of matches just as they do in professional tournaments and the matches and tournaments I have played in all across the country.

The league continued to grow as did our family and we needed reasonable health insurance which was difficult to find being self-employed. I took an engineering position in early 2012 that required a significant amount of travel and kept us from being able to get out and promote as much as we did previously. So, the number of teams stabilized and the growth stalled.

We didn’t care how many teams we had as we always valued quality over quantity and we hope that showed through in all our decisions. We wanted a league with a format people liked playing while enjoying the people they were playing with. It wasn’t just a business for us as it was much greater than that. It was personal, which is why we always added money to get payouts where we thought they should be. We added even more money when envelopes or money came up missing or a player or team didn’t pay as we would never let that affect the prize fund. We stand by our principles and values and took losses so no division or team got paid less than they should have and in many cases, they were paid more.

There are many costs associated with running a business including high software/systems maintenance, troubleshooting, and hosting fees. We actually lose money on the league with low team counts and we lose significant money with extremely low team counts. Since Covid came along, we have been at extremely low team counts. Why would someone continue running a business while losing money? We hope that question is answered with the passion in this post. We love pool and our players. We held on to a business that we didn’t purchase, rather we built from scratch.

Losing even more teams and divisions was a direct result from us making the decision not to force teams/players to play when Covid was introduced to us all. We knew that decision would probably cost us our business. Like I stated before, we stand by our principles and values and were willing to lose our business rather than risk the lives of our players or their families.

Now comes the hard part.

Announcement:

The end of an era has come. As of now, Dana and I have made the difficult decision to step away from running the local franchise of LAP League so we will not be starting any divisions up for 2022. We simply don’t have the capacity to get out and promote like it would require to build the league back up.

Many have asked us why we don’t just sell the local franchise of LAP League and we’ve even had a few make casual inquires regarding it. It’s not about the money, rather about the quality of the league. Someone would have to prove to us they are serious about it, have the capacity to run a league, and convince us that all of their decisions would be as fair as possible and based on the best interest of the players and not themselves. We could be open to the idea but we have high expectations as all the players should too. Those expectations could be unrealistic, however, we will not compromise the integrity of the league. We would rather the league not run then to have someone run it in a way we don’t feel aligns with our vision and what we would want for players.

To our establishments, a huge thank you needs to go out to all locations that have supported LAP League throughout the years. You put up with a lot of complaints and you never receive the thanks you truly deserve. There is an abundance of difficult challenges keeping an establishment up and running that most people don’t see and aren’t privy to. You’ve done an amazing job over the years promoting pool and providing anyone that enjoys the game a place to play. This thanks goes out to each and every establishment that has ever hosted LAP League but a special thank you goes out to a couple of establishments that have never wavered in their support of LAP League. Those establishments would be Spectators Sports Bar and the Louisville Billiards Club.

To the special individuals that helped in our establishments, thank you to Marc, Trae, Bobby, Angi, Steve, Mary, and Jared for your support and loyalty through the years as it will always be remembered and appreciated greatly!

To our players, our sincerest thanks and appreciation goes out to each and every one of you that has ever played in or supported LAP League at any point going all the way back to the inception and startup in 2009. Our hope is that everyone enjoyed the league and will continue playing somewhere keeping their expectations high while still loving the game of pool. Wherever that is, good luck and shoot well!

Sincerely,
Donnie & Dana

Louisville just lost a long standing figure of the pool community. Jeff Green, know to most as Fluff, was killed in a car accident. Please keep his family (pool family included) in your thoughts and prayers during this tragic time.

We are super saddened by the news that Jim Gagliardi has passed away! Please say a prayer for his family and friends during this very tragic time! Jim was a super sweet guy and loved pool, this is a great loss to the pool world and the world in general!

It is with great sadness that we report the loss of Willie Capers. Willie was a great guy and simply loved playing pool. We never heard a complaint from Willie as he was as easy going as anybody we’ve ever met. The world lost a great one in Willie. May he Rest In Peace. :(

With sadness I post that Jeremiah Turner's Dad passed yesterday. Arrangements to follow. The viewing is 10 am for family an 11-1 viewing for everyone else with the funeral at 1 pm with service to follow at the grave site. Newcomer funeral home in New Albany. Please keep the family in your prayers!

We have a team on Tuesdays at Diamonds St. Matthews that needs a few more low players as they are mostly high handicaps. If you’re wanting to laugh a lot and hang out with some cool people on Tuesdays, let us know.