Billy Incardona - Part 1 (The Early Hustle — From Pittsburgh Streets to Poolroom Legends)
In this first installment of our six-part conversation with the great Billy Incardona — known to pool fans everywhere as “Nine-Ball Billy” and later the unmistakable voice of Accu-Stats — the Legends of the Cue team dives into the early years of one of pool’s most colorful and enduring figures.
Hosted by Mike Gonzalez, Mark Wilson, and Allison Fisher, this episode traces Billy’s roots in Pittsburgh, where a curious nine-year-old first discovered the magic of the game on a makeshift checkerboard table during recess. From that innocent fascination grew a lifelong passion — and a career defined by grit, gamble, and street-smart ingenuity.
Billy recounts his first games at the YMCA, his early taste of victory in youth competitions, and his unforgettable initiation into the gritty world of money pool when he unknowingly faced legendary hustlers Charles "Country" Martin and Cicero Murphy— the latter destined to become the first African American world champion in straight pool.
Listeners are treated to vivid snapshots of mid-century Pittsburgh poolrooms, family life shaped by a tough father and a loving mother, and the young hustler’s rise as a natural gambler with a mind made for odds, angles, and human psychology. Billy’s candor, humor, and charm shine through as he explains how “matching up” and “hiding your speed” weren’t just tactics, but a way of life.
This opening chapter sets the tone for an extraordinary life story — from humble beginnings and hard lessons to the mindset that made Billy Incardona one of the game’s most fascinating figures. Authentic, funny, and full of wisdom from a bygone era of pool, this is Legends of the Cue storytelling at its best.
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Music by Lyrium.
About
"Legends of the Cue" is a pool history podcast featuring interviews with Pool Hall of Fame members, winners of major championships and other people of influence in and around pocket billiards. We also plan to highlight memorable pool brands, events and venues. Focusing on the positive aspects of the sport, we aim to create and provide an engaging and timeless repository of content that listeners can enjoy now and forever. Co-hosted by WPBA and BCA Hall of Fame member Allison Fisher, Mosconi Cup player and captain Mark Wilson, our podcast focuses on telling the life stories of pool's greatest, in their voices. Join Allison, Mark and Mike Gonzalez for “Legends of the Cue.”
Pool Professional
Billy “Pittsburgh Billy” Incardona is one of pocket billiards’ rare, enduring hybrids: a feared action player with a surgeon’s understanding of one-pocket, a nine-ball force from the era when road men wrote their own rules, and, later, the unmistakable broadcast voice who helped teach the modern world how champions actually think. Born December 2, 1943, and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Incardona’s story is inseparable from the gritty romance of American poolrooms, places where talent mattered, nerve mattered more, and reputation was currency you guarded as carefully as the cash in your pocket.
On our Legends of the Cue six-part series, Billy takes listeners back to the origin point: a kid’s fascination that becomes an obsession, and then becomes a life. He describes those early days in Pittsburgh, learning at places like the YMCA, soaking up patterns and angles, and quickly discovering that pool wasn’t only a game of balls and pockets, but a game of people: who’s watching, who’s talking, who’s under pressure, and who’s pretending not to be. That “people-reading” skill becomes one of his defining traits. Billy wasn’t just learning how to run racks, he was learning how to "match up", how to hide speed, and how to control the emotional temperature of a room.
Pittsburgh in those years was fertile soil for that kind of education. The city produced tough players and sharp minds, and Billy grew up in an environment where pool culture was both competitive and intensely social, where you could learn a world-class lesson simply by keeping your mou…Read More