Player Articles

Jose “Amang” Parica had to pull a stool every time it was his turn to make a shot when he first played billiards at his father’s billiard hall in Blumentritt back in the Philippines. He was just seven years old when he first struck a cue ball with a cue that was much longer than he was, on a billiard table that was just as high as he was. Parica literally grew up with a cue in his hands.

Great billiard players have one thing in common. They played the game at a very early age and grew up in billiard halls. Jose “Amang” Parica, the first of the Filipino billiard greats, was only seven years old when he first played the sport, and he played every single day in the billiard halls his father owned in Sta. Cruz and Blumentritt in Manila.

Francisco “Django” Bustamante was 12 when he picked up the game of billiards in his Tarlac, Tarlac. Regular players in the billiards hall near the public market would shoo him away. He took time out from selling banana cue (deep-fried, caramelized bananas) and boiled peanuts by squeezing in a few minutes of practice.

Today Django is a Tarlaqueño who can never be turned away by his province mates. Provincial and city officials gave him a ticker tape parade at Tarlac Plaza for winning a gold medal at the Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, last year.

Filipino players have dominated the American billiard scene in the past several years that billiard aficionados have called the phenomenon the “Filipino invasion.”

Veteran Jose “Amang” Parica blazed the trail in 1980 when, as a 31-year-old player looking for greater challenges, he came to America to compete professionally. In 1986, Parica finally broke the ice with his first pro tour victory at the World Open Child Clydress tournament in Kentucky. He followed it up with another victory a week later in the World Classic Cup V, and another win that same year.

There was a story about Django Bustamante that has left a lasting impression on me about his character... fearless in the shadow of defeat.

The story starts out after a major tournament in the United States in the early 90's. Francisco Bustamante was just beginning to invade the United States to play in tournaments following his compadre Efren "Bata" Reyes and Jose Parica. The tournament lured many top professional players including the "Scorpion" Johnny Archer. Incidentally, Johnny Archer came up with his best pool performance in this particular story!

IT'S in his eyes, steely and unwavering, the look of a hunter after prey. Francisco "Django" Bustamante stalks the pool table, the green rectangle his hunting ground, weapon of choice firmly in hand, ready to strike. It's in his movements around the table: careful but never tentative, pausing now and then to take a puff from a cigarette. If he's across the table from you, then you have a case of good news and bad news. The good: You are facing off against one of the best ever to hold a cue stick. The bad: You're going down next.

He was a skinny guy with a thin mustache and no teeth. To most folks, this Caesar Morales looked like a dreamer without a chance, some local hero or small-time hustler who thought he could ride a few bar room triumphs to success on the pro billiards circuit. Maybe he was Mexican, or Filipino—he didn't say and no one asked. This was the 1985 Red's 9-Ball Open in Houston, Texas, $10,500 to the winner, where billiards' best came to win, not make friends.