Pat Fleming - Part 1 (Counting Cars to Counting Balls: The Early Life)

In this opening chapter of a multi-part Legends of the Cue conversation, we sit down with Pat Fleming—the meticulous mind whose lifelong obsession with numbers would ultimately reshape how the game of pool is measured, understood, and preserved.

Pat’s story begins far from television lights and world championships, in Paterson, New Jersey, where a young boy spent his days counting cars from a fire hydrant, tracking patterns, and recording results simply for the joy of understanding them. That instinct—to observe, measure, and learn—never left him. From Catholic school classrooms ruled by strict discipline, to a handmade toy pool table restored by his father, Pat’s early life forged both the discipline and curiosity that would later define his legacy.

Long before Accu-Stats, there was baseball—lots of it. Pat was a feared Little League slugger, an accomplished catcher, and a natural competitor who thrived against older, tougher opponents. But everything changed when a real cue tip entered his life. That small detail opened the door to pool rooms, straight pool marathons, and a fateful encounter with a seasoned professional that revealed both his raw talent—and the strategic depth of the game still waiting to be learned.

As Pat matured as a player, life accelerated. Marriage at 18, the unwavering support of his wife Diane, state titles, and deep runs against the very best in the world all followed. Yet the turning point came not with a victory—but with a loss. A third-place finish at the 1981 World Straight Pool Championship led Pat to buy a humble Radio Shack computer, unknowingly planting the seed for Accu-Stats.

This episode captures the foundations of a remarkable life: the habits, sacrifices, insights, and pivotal moments that turned a gifted player into the game’s greatest historian. It’s the beginning of a story that changed pool forever—and it starts here.

Transcript

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

Welcome to another edition of Legends of the Q and Allison Fisher. Our guest today, I think, is leaving a gift for future generations of pool enthusiasts.

Allison Fisher 0:28

Indeed he is. He's a terrific guy. Today's guest is someone who has done so much for pool because of his love of statistics. Over to Mark.

Mark Wilson 0:37

When you talk about someone that is a life master pool player, they've run a hundred balls many times in competition. Whenever you think of someone that has accomplished something great for our sport, nobody compares. He's our Hall of Famer. Let's welcome Acupat, Pat Fleming. Welcome, Pat.

Pat Fleming 0:56

Great to be here. Great to be here.

Mike Gonzalez 0:58

Hey, good morning, Pat, and glad we finally got this put together. Of course, we've been looking forward to it.

Pat Fleming 1:03

Thank you, Michael. Good job.

Mike Gonzalez 1:06

Yeah, we're gonna get through all the technical things, but anyway, you know, we've had a chance to talk to you a little bit about what we're trying to do here with Legends of the Q.

Pat Fleming 1:15

Great idea.

Mike Gonzalez 1:16

I'd like to think it's it's just a small slice of what you've been doing over many, many years, which is really capturing pool memories for future generations.

Pat Fleming 1:25

Uh absolutely.

Mike Gonzalez 1:27

It's a wonderful thing what you've done. We're of course we're going to talk all about it and anxious to hear some of the inside baseball in terms of how that all got started and so forth. But uh, as you know, we always go back to the very beginning because we're telling your life story, and your life story started in Patterson, New Jersey.

Pat Fleming 1:43

Yes, it did. Yeah. And born in Patterson, New Jersey, I have a brother, Peter, and a sister, Barbara Ann. And we all lived there with our parents, of course, and went to Catholic school, St. Anthony's in Paterson. And as long as I can remember, I kept records of everything. I would sit on a fire hydrant and with a paper and pencil count the cars that went by and what model and make they were. And this is every day I'd go up to this fire hydrant and I'd be very excited about watching all these cars go by and indicating with stroke counts all the different kinds of cars and everything. So that was you know what I've done all my life, just kept track of things. In fact, being kind of a healthy guy, keep track of what my resting heart rate is, what my weight is on a doctor's scale, what my temperature is, how many hours I slept. This is every morning, and I record. And I've been doing that for years and years. So I just keep track of things.

Mike Gonzalez 2:58

Did you ever figure out where that came from?

Pat Fleming 3:01

No, no. I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing the differences in the results.

Mike Gonzalez 3:06

Yeah, but back in your lineage, any relatives that you know of that were kind of into that same thing?

Pat Fleming 3:13

Well, my dad, he was very smart, and he made sure everything was just right. And not to the point where it was critical of you or anything, but he liked to make sure things were done right and just kept track of things. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 3:35

Yeah. That's interesting. So you're probably pretty good at math then as well, like math, I would assume.

Pat Fleming 3:40

Math was my favorite subject at school.

Mike Gonzalez 3:42

Yeah. Yeah. And so what age was this you said you were sitting on the fire hydrant?

Pat Fleming 3:48

Probably six or seven.

Mike Gonzalez 3:49

That's interesting. Yeah. That's interesting. And what else were you doing other than counting cars at six and seven?

Pat Fleming 3:56

Well, I remember, well, this is in the I was born in 1948. That's the last century, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 4:06

That's right, for those young listeners of ours, the 20th century.

Pat Fleming 4:10

And there used to be a truck with a horse that would go by our house and he would be selling paper. And we would buy paper, and I would get the paper, and I would just start writing numbers and see how far I could write numbers. I mean, it's just weird stuff that it just kept track of things, you know. But uh yeah.

Allison Fisher 4:32

Doing what you're meant to do, that's for sure. How were you first introduced to pool, Pat?

Pat Fleming 4:38

Well, regarding pool, my dad picked up from someone disposing of it a pool table. It was a wooden toy pool table. It was about six feet long and had no bed to it at all. It just was the cushions and four folding legs, and some smaller than what we're accustomed to now, balls, smaller balls. And so he brought it home and he took plywood and made a bed and attached it to the table and covered the bed with uh what was it called? Uh felt. Just felt. Covered it with felt.

Mike Gonzalez 5:27

Was it um was it three-piece plywood?

Pat Fleming 5:34

Well, when he cut it to the dimensions, it was probably six or eight pieces, but uh one piece went to the bed. And it also had a pool cube. A pool cube. It didn't have a tip on it, but we were, you know, maybe eight or nine years old, and we didn't know that you needed a tip. So we started playing pool on this table without a cue stick with a tip. But that's that's all we knew, right?

Allison Fisher 6:04

You learned center ball very well then.

Pat Fleming 6:06

Yeah, a lot of center ball, yeah. But what happened with the Q stick is it eventually mushroomed where the tip was because it's wood. And so we would just put the Q stick in a vise and cut an inch off and have another new tip. And eventually, years and years later, that Q stick was about as long as a jump cue. But it taught us how to stroke and how to hit balls, and it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.

Mike Gonzalez 6:38

That's interesting. Well, we're gonna delve more into that. Tell us a little bit about your folks. What did your dad and mom do?

Pat Fleming 6:43

My mom was a housewife, and my dad worked for Kirfat, which is an aerospace company, and he was in the a factory worker, but he worked all his life.

Mike Gonzalez 6:59

And you got to tell us a little bit about that Catholic upbringing. St. Anthony's have uh it was that was the schools?

Pat Fleming 7:05

I remember being scared to death every day going to that school. They were very strict. I mean, if if you did anything wrong, they'd grab your ear, they'd grab your ear or hair and drag you around. And if you came in and you had gum in your mouth, they'd put it in your shirt and squeeze it so you'd have gummy shirt. And one time, this is this is a true story. I was this is a second grade. I was talking in the back of the room, and the nun, because we had nuns, sure, would tell me to stop talking. And of course, you stop talking, but then you forget about it and you start talking again. And she said, Come to the front of the room. So I'm almost crying because these are nuns that are real strict, and I'm just a second grade or something. I come to the front of the room. I hate telling this story, but it is true, it's absolutely true. She says, I want you to face the classroom. Okay, so I stood up there alone facing them. She says, Stick out your tongue. I stick out my tongue, and she takes a pair of scissors out of the drawer. And I went nuts. Oh my! Yeah. And but she didn't cut my tongue off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kind of threatening you. But that's the way school was in my time. You know, they would be very strict, and you ended up doing what you were supposed to do.

Mike Gonzalez 8:44

Yeah, you remember the long wooden pointers they'd use. Almost looked like a shorter Q-stick, maybe a jump cue. You ever get any of those across your knuckles?

Pat Fleming 8:55

Uh no, no, I don't recall any of that.

Mike Gonzalez 8:58

Yeah, I I sure did at St. Teresa.

Pat Fleming 9:02

Those Catholic schools a bit briefly.

Allison Fisher 9:04

Oh, they would read it. Tough. Tough.

Pat Fleming 9:06

Yes, and then you got a monsieur very strict, you know. They would hit you. Boy, they were they beat the out of you. Excuse me. Wow. Yeah.

Allison Fisher 9:16

It's awful. What an awful upbringing.

Pat Fleming 9:18

But they said they loved us.

Mike Gonzalez 9:20

And and and mass every morning before school, probably.

Pat Fleming 9:22

Yes, yes. And you had to wear the same kind of outfit. Everybody had the same outfit.

Mike Gonzalez 9:28

Yeah. Yeah. We didn't, we didn't have uniforms, but uh we had we had when I started in third grade, we had in the classroom was third, fourth, and fifth. So we had two rows were third grade, the middle two rows were fourth grade, and the right two rows were fifth grade. And the teacher would just bounce around and and teach the different rows, and it was two classes in one.

Pat Fleming 9:48

You know, half of it was class grade one, the other half was grade two.

Mike Gonzalez 9:53

I assume you were a very good student, though.

Pat Fleming 9:56

Yeah, we were all good students. We made sure that we had to be, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 10:00

I'm not talking about behavior, I'm talking about intellect and grades.

Pat Fleming 10:04

Yeah, well, you had to make sure you did that right too. Yeah. We were, I remember leaving Patterson, New Jersey, went to Butler, New Jersey, and I was in the fifth grade. And we tried to get into the parochial school when my we went to that town. My mother went to the parochial school to enroll me. But they said they were filled and they can't take any more people, any more students. So, okay, so I had to go to the public school. Oh my goodness. I went to the public school. I was like two grades ahead of everybody as far as you know, the uh the classes and the studying and the and after the first day, I said, I never want to leave. It was great. Yeah, it was great. Public school was great.

Mike Gonzalez 10:59

You could get away with a little bit more, couldn't you?

Pat Fleming 11:02

Yeah. I was in heaven. So don't send me to that school, that broke school. This is good. This is good. I like this.

Mike Gonzalez 11:11

Never mind, mom. Never mind. So tell us about other things you were doing. I mean, did you get into other sports other than uh your early interest in that sport table?

Pat Fleming 11:22

My first love was baseball. And I was playing baseball as long as I could remember. I don't remember being taught how to hold the bat or how to throw a ball. I mean, it just and if we weren't playing baseball, we'd play stickball in the streets and things like that. And I was very good at my age, and I remember playing with the older kids and just doing well, and I was a very good hitter, and I'd be hitting them over the fence constantly in our little playground. And so then I went and played in Little League. Little League. And it was like a 200-foot fence, yeah, and I set a record, I hit 13 home runs over that 200-foot fence. Look at you, and so then I say, I want to be a baseball player. Sure. Because they would intentionally walk me in little league. It's hard to believe.

Mike Gonzalez 12:24

Unprecedented.

Pat Fleming 12:25

Yeah. So one time I went to my uncle and I told him, you know, that they're intentionally walking me to get past me and get all the other players who strike out a lot. And he said, Well, the next time they do that, and after the first three balls, why don't you swing at a couple? Maybe they'll take that 3-2 count and actually throw to you. And so the next time it happened, after ball three, I called timeout and I went to my coach and I said, My uncle suggested that maybe I should swing at a couple pitches. Maybe they'll pitch to me. And he says, Great idea. Go back there. So I go back there. Of course, the next pitch is way outside, and I just made a weak swing. And the the families, all the families there say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And so then they did it again, and I swung again. And the little crowd's going, What is he doing? What is he doing? And so now the coach of the other team walks out to the pitcher. Yeah. And they're going to discuss this. What are we going to do now? It's a three and two count. And you know, he's a good player and all that. And so they decided to pitch to me. And I ground it out. But it was an interesting story. Yeah, absolutely. And then another time, which I remembered of Little League, my dad was there in the stands, and I hit a home run. So that's fine. I hit a home run. Well, the next time up, I hit another home run. And just trotted around the bases. And now I'm up again, and he's real happy that his son is doing so well. And his friend is next to him and says, Look, no matter what Pat does now, he had a great day. So just be happy with what he's done so far. I hit another home run in three in the one game.

Mike Gonzalez 14:33

Oh my.

Pat Fleming 14:34

And just a memory thing. I'll brag a little bit about that one because it's kind of memory. You should. Yeah. Yeah. And then, so I was a baseball player. And in school, I was a catcher. In Little League, I was a catcher. I was shortstop and a pitcher in all three. But when I got to high school, I became the catcher. And when we had batting practice, I would be catching for everybody. And let's say they all got five hits or something. Well, eventually it's my turn. And I might have got 50 times they would throw to me. And you know, I was a good good baseball player. But then, but then what happened was, as you know, I was playing pool a little bit, uh, you know, like when I was like 13 or 14, I was still playing on this toy pool table.

Mike Gonzalez 15:31

Oh, okay.

Pat Fleming 15:32

Yeah. And then my brother came home, and I was probably 14. He came home with a Q stick, and it had a Q-tip on it. And I said, What's that? You're like, What's that?

Allison Fisher 15:48

What's that?

Pat Fleming 15:52

So he had this thing and started playing with this, and that changed my life. And I decided pool is where it's at. And I wanted to play more pool. And I went to the pool room and fibbed about my age because I was when I turned 15, you had to be 16 to be allowed in the billiard room. But when I turned 15, and now with a lot of experience with a Q tip playing on this toy table, they opened up what was called a Willie Moscone Golden Q, all Brunswick, brand new Brunswick pool tables, nine-foot pool tables. And I walked in there and it's like, this is unbelievable. I've never seen anything like this in my life. And sure enough, I'm playing good because I knew how to play with a tip now. And uh and so I I played really well for a while, and now I'm 16 and I'm playing really good. But really good for the pool room I'm in. I didn't go anywhere, you know, but they said, Man, you know, you play great, and winning all these little tournaments that we had at the pool hall. So I get a phone call one day from this guy who heard that this young kid can play pretty good and wants to know if I want to play. And his name was Ray Martin. So I've never gambled, all I did was play straight pool, trying to run balls, run balls, run balls. And he wanted to know if he could come and play with me. I said, sure, you know. So he came. And of course, when he came in, he asked what we should play for. And I said, I'm just the kid. What are you talking about? You're a professional pool player. And he finally agreed to play me a game of straight pool, 125 points. And the kids in the pool room, now he's a pro, but the kids in the pool room think I'm the best player in the world because that's all they've seen. So they're goading me to play him. And eventually I said, okay, we'll play 125 points. And we didn't play for much, if anything, if anything, it was like two bucks. It was just something to play. And wouldn't you know it? I ran 125 balls on him.

Allison Fisher 18:39

You're kidding me.

Pat Fleming 18:42

I was I was 17 because I just started driving. I was 17. 125 balls. And he said to me, because he knew I was just a shot maker. You know, give me a shot. I'm I'm pocketing that ball. And but he knew I didn't know the strategy of the game as well as running 125 balls. And he says, okay, we're gonna play another game, but now you have to call your shot, of course, but you also have to call your next shot before you shoot this shot. I'm so wow, that's weird. And of course, he killed me. He knew what he was doing. I I wasn't that smart to like plan ahead that much. I was a shot maker. So he invited me over to his house, went to his house, and then he ran 125 balls at his house. And then soon after that, he won the world straight pool title in California.

Mark Wilson 19:44

Yeah.

Pat Fleming 19:46

So that's a little story about how I started being really in love with Pool. My wife Diane, we were married when we were 18, and we'd been married for 58 years. And around that time I began taking Poole real seriously because I was playing pretty good. I worked for Sears Roebuck and Company, and I had won some state titles, New Jersey, up in Maine and Connecticut, and I was winning these state titles to compete in the US Open in Chicago. And while I was chasing my career, Diane was the steady force behind it all. She worked full-time raising our kids, Patrick and Dara, and keeping the family together. Looking back at that time, I was addicted to pool. I should have been home more than I was. But Diane's patience, support in my career, the billiard world, would have never happened without Diane. I mean, she had she was making the money. Okay, she had the job. I'm trying to, I had a job, but without her job, we would never survive. And of course, I'm out shooting pool all the time and I wasn't home enough. But we're still together and we love each other, and it's just a wonderful life now. When I was 31, and this was a change in my outlook on pool, I finished third in the 1981 World Straight Pool tournament. And I managed to beat some of the very best in the world. Not that I was better, but because I reached a level where on any given day I can beat anybody. In that event, let's see, I defeated Dallas West, Petey Margot, Jim Rempey, and Mike Siegel. And it brought me to be undefeated in one half of this two-stage tournament. So I ended up finishing third. And I took my $3,000 prize money, this is 1981.

Mike Gonzalez 22:29

A lot of money.

Pat Fleming 22:32

And I bought a Radio Shack TRS 80 computer and started programming Acustat statistics. Now, let me say this. The best thing that ever happened was that I did not win that tournament. Now I beat the best players, even the ones that won the tournament. But if I I beat Mike Siegel to finish in, to be undefeated in my bracket. And Nick Varner and Mizerak were in the other bracket, and they had to play each other, and I had to play Mike Siegel. So he had to beat me twice because I was undefeated. And so the first game he legitimately won. Nothing unusual. He won that match. But he had to beat me again. And so I am winning like approximately 100 to 50. It's a 150-point match. And he runs 100 and out. And so now he goes on television the next day playing Nick Varner because Varner beat Mizorek. Now, if I beat Siegel one of those two times, now I had just got done beating everybody anyway. So if I won that, I would have been on television the next day in the finals of the World Championship. And who's to say I couldn't got a win there? And if I won that match, I would have been a world champion. And in my mind, ah, this is where I belong. I've proven myself I'm a world champion. This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I'm going to devote everything to this. And Akistats would never have been born. But because I lost that match, bought a computer, started programming, and that's what started the statistics and then the video. But it saved my life by losing that match to Siegel. That's amazing.

Allison Fisher 24:40

What amazing story. So did you still compete after that? Did you still compete?

Pat Fleming 24:45

I was competitive. And yeah, I mean, I and I beat everybody. I mean, I beaten not that I beat them more than me, but I beat Miserek and I beat Buddy Hall and I beat Nick Varner and all those guys. Like I say, I'm not better than them, but I was competitive enough to win my share.

Allison Fisher 25:06

Yeah.

Pat Fleming 25:07

So I did that. But what happened eventually is I was a tournament director for many years. I was a player for many years and developing Acustats and video for many years. And eventually you can't do everything and focus on everything. And so I decided to focus on the Acustats.

Mike Gonzalez 25:36

Interesting.

Pat Fleming 25:38

And what happened originally is that Acustats was strictly statistics. Every time he pocketed a ball, you'd count it. And every time he made a mistake, and there were five kinds of mistakes that you can do to leave the pool table, I recorded them. And so then I would higher score and it gave you a number. In other words, let's say you made 80 balls in a session. The five kinds of errors that you could make to leave the table, that's what it was. You can scratch on the break, so you can leave the table. You can kick at a ball and miss it completely. That's an error, and you leave the table. That's a mistake. That's the third mistake. Well, that's made you leave the table, too. And you your position play can force you to play safe or play a hard shot. So those five things forever. That's the only ways you can leave a table. And so I would hire scorekeepers, and we'd have maybe 16 tables at a tournament, and I would have to hire like 32 scorekeepers with sheets of paper. They would have to keep track of every ball pocketed and why that player left the table. And then at the end of the match, they would post the score. Well, that score was called the total performance average, which we still use. And uh Mike Mark knows it very well. You know, if you shoot a 900, for instance, it's it's an excellent score. And so if you pocketed 80 balls and you made 20 mistakes, which is not unusual over a complete set session, you'd be batting 800. It's like getting 80 hits with 100 at bats in baseball. Well, in pool, it's easier to make a ball than it is to get a hit. So that's that stayed with us. But the problem was we were losing a lot of money hiring all these people, and we really weren't generating enough money to survive. So I decided to buy some cheap cameras and set a camera up on every pool table for the purpose of keeping statistics. I would record the match, and instead of hiring 32 scorekeepers, I might just have two or three. And they would go to the hotel room and then fast forward review the matches, and we would get the results quicker.

Mike Gonzalez 29:04

At what speed, by the way?

Pat Fleming 29:08

I don't know, but it's fast forward, whatever you can do. Now you might have to stop it and do things like that. But fast forward, we would do that. But we were still not doing well, still losing money. So then one day at a tournament that we're doing this, recording matches, fast forward, we erase the video and we do another video and erase that and do another so that we can keep the statistics. Well, someone came up to me and says, Hey, can I buy that match between Varner and Reyes? And I said, Buy it. No, we erase those things. We just we're just keeping statistics, that's all. He says, Oh man, I would have bought that. And I'm thinking, well, we're losing a lot of money here.

Allison Fisher 30:08

Maybe I shouldn't erase these things. Thank you for listening to another episode of Legends of the Cube. If you like what you hear, wherever you listen to a podcast, including Apple and Spotify, please follow, subscribe, and spread the word. Give us our podcast a five-star rating and today's course. Visit our website and support our whole history project. Until our next golden break with more legends of the cubes. Hello, everybody.