Rick Martin, droppin by, that is an honor...thanks for stopping in - your insights and perspectives are always quality
I was fortunate enough to see you play my first go around with foosball...you were a monster and the talk about your ability in singles buzzed around a tournament room and I think that was true not just for up and comers like me and my friends but among the best in the world at the time
I have always found this old school new school arguement to be rarely balanced...the new school leans toward new and old school leans toward old players or table...I have never heard a compelling arguement to sell me on the dominance of either era - table or players
I believe that if you took the top players at the top of their game, with the incentives that were around during the TS/foosball explosion (money and fame) of the 70's, and dropped them onto any table, they would all compete as well as at any time during the games history...the only player I think might transend that is Fred but we will never know...to see you compete with Fred when you were at the top of your game would have been a trip
anyway, I think the big differences between yesterday and today is that in the beginning there was money and fame and so the players were 100% dedicated and buried themselves in the game and so discovered how far the game could go (up until it died) today, the players start much younger, play many more years, and get the benefit of the information discovered by the first generation of players
only one player in either generation has sustained making foosball their full time profession for more than 4 or 5 years and that is Fred which is why, in my opinion, that he dominates still after 10 years
but if you took Billy and Tony and Terry and some others and dropped them into a situation where they could play full time, make the kind of money you could make in the 70's (relative to today), and foosball was the talk of the town (on TV and in newspapers as the rage) we would all see some crazy levels of foosball
this comparing one era verses another is fun and it is done in all sports all the time but in the end, there is no way to prove people's theories, regardless of how logical or experienced they are, one way or the other
some people will not come to grips with this and will battle on trying to prove the dominance of one over the other and that is part of the fallout of debates like this but in the end, it is all just opinion and can not be proved
for me, I am proud to have been able to see you and other greats play at your best and I am glad you are still in the game these years later....I hope to see you more on this board in the days ahead and maybe sometime before I pass, I will have the good fortune of being able to play you one on one not to prove my skill but to play with one of the best foosball players of all time
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