About Ralph Greenleaf
Ralph Greenleaf (November 3, 1899 – March 15, 1950) was an American professional pool and carom billiards player. Greenleaf is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years 1919 and 1938, he won the World Straight Pool Championship nineteen times. His obituary in The New York Times said of Greenleaf, in March 1950: "What Babe Ruth did for baseball, Dempsey did for fighting, Tilden did for tennis...Greenleaf did for pocket billiards." The championships of his era were contested in the game of 14.1 continuous ("straight pool"), but varied in format from contest to contest and were not annual events. Championships were challenge matches between two players often played over several days to relatively high numbers (1,500 points for example). He was one of the first three members inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame, in 1966. He was ranked number 3 on the Billiards Digest 50 Greatest Players of the Century. In a pool championship match, Greenleaf was a fierce competitor, winning his first world title in 1919, as well as others, off and on, through 1937.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.