Ruth McGinnis (1910 – May 16, 1974) was an American

straight pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many billiard balls as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of pool played in professional ...

player, who is considered one of the greatest female pool players of all time.

Early life

Ruth McGinnis was born in 1910 in

Honesdale, Pennsylvania Honesdale is a borough in and the county seat of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The borough's population was 4,458 at the time of the 2020 census. Honesdale is located northeast of Scranton in a rural area that provides many recrea ...

to Thomas and Margaret McGinnis. She was one of three sisters, and her father was a former boat captain and barber. She began playing

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

at the age of 7, on pool tables in her father's barbershop on South Main Street in Honesdale. She was a prodigious player and began receiving local and national press coverage in the late 1910s. In 1922, at the age of eleven, McGinnis played seven-year-old

Willie Mosconi William Joseph Mosconi (; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between the years of 1941 and 1956, he won the World Straight Pool Championship nineteen times. For mo ...

in a Philadelphia pool hall

exhibition match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

, though the contest was stopped by police as local laws prohibited minors from being in pool halls. She also played exhibition matches against

Ralph Greenleaf Ralph Greenleaf (November 3, 1899 in Monmouth, Illinois – March 15, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American professional pool and carom billiards player. He was a 19 time World Pocket Billiards Champion, who dominated the sport duri ...

in 1924, and was described in ''The Tribune'' as Greenleaf's protégé. She was the captain of the varsity high school basketball team that won the Pennsylvania state championship in 1928. McGinnis scored 36 points in one game, and 341 across the 15 games in the series. McGinnis studied to become a physical education teacher at East Stroudsbourg State Teachers College, where she also participated in a number of sports and served as a lifeguard, reportedly saving a man from drowning. She graduated in 1932, though it was difficult to find work due to the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

Pool career

After graduating from Stroudsburg, McGinnis participated in a national billiards tour program, "Better Billiards," sponsored by the National Billiard Association of America and Brunswick Billiards, and typically traveled around 28,000 miles a year. The tour was led by her former competitor, Willie Mosconi. In 1933,

Babe Didrikson Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (; Didrikson; June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball and track and field. She won two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Summer O ...

, recently returned from the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held duri ...

, challenged McGinnis to a billiards competition. The pair competed in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

in January 1933, with McGinnis beating Didrikson 400-62 in a six-day match. In the 1930s, she also helped create the movie ''Behind the Eight-Ball'' with

Paul Douglas Paul Howard Douglas (March 26, 1892 – September 24, 1976) was an American politician and Georgist economist. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Illinois for eighteen years, from 1949 to 1967. During his Senat ...

. In 1942, McGinnis participated in the New York State championship, becoming the first woman to compete in a men's tournament. In 1948, she became the first woman to enter the

World Straight Pool Championship The World Straight Pool Championship is a pool competition, that was held up until the game of Nine-ball became popularized in America. It was the most prestigious straight pool tournament up until the early 21st century, tournaments like the Amer ...

. McGinnish was widely considered the World Women's Champion in the 1930s and 1940s, despite the lack of professional tournaments for women. She played primarily in exhibition contests, rather than high paying tournaments, and had a 97% win rate and a high run of 128.

Later life

McGinnis retired from the billiards profession in 1954, and went on to teach developmentally delayed students at the S.A. Douglas School in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in the 1960s. In 1974, at the age of 64, she died of cancer at Wayne County Memorial Hospital. McGinnis was posthumously inducted into the Women's Professional Billiards Association Hall of Fame in 1976, and into the

Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame This is the list of people inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's hall of fame to honour outstanding people who, through their competitive skills and dedication, have enriched the sport and industry. Two categories have been established in ...

in 1997. A marker commemorating McGinnis has been erected in

in 2016 by the

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) is the governmental agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania responsible for the collection, conservation and interpretation of Pennsylvania's historic heritage. The commission cares for ...

References

External links

1946 Ruth McGinnis Billiards Champion
YouTube video.
Ruth McGinnis: The Queen of Billiards
''Smithsonian Magazine'' article by Eliza McGraw, March 22, 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:McGinnis, Ruth 1910 births 1974 deaths American pool players Female pool players People from Honesdale, Pennsylvania