Fleming, Pat

Pat Fleming has spent a lifetime proving that in pool, what gets measured gets remembered, and that the stories behind the great performances are every bit as important as the performances themselves. A Billiard Congress of America (BCA) Hall of Famer (Meritorious Service) and the founder of Accu-Stats Video Productions, Fleming is widely regarded as one of the most influential behind-the-scenes figures in modern pocket billiards: a former touring-level competitor, an innovator obsessed with accuracy, and a steward of the sport’s history whose work has helped define how pool is watched, evaluated, taught, and preserved.

Born in 1948, Pat grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, where a childhood fascination with numbers showed up early and often. Long before he would become synonymous with statistical analysis in cue sports, he was the kid who tracked things for the sheer satisfaction of knowing the truth with certainty, counts, totals, patterns, and progress. That instinct, part curiosity, part discipline, became a defining thread throughout his life. In the Legends of the Cue series, Pat’s early years come through as the foundation of everything that followed: a young man shaped by routine, responsibility, and a deep belief that improvement isn’t a guess; it’s something you can document.

Athletics were also central to those early chapters. Pat excelled in baseball, where repetition, mechanics, and measurable outcomes reward the player willing to put in the work. That same competitive DNA ultimately carried him into pool, a game that, at its highest level, demands equal parts creativity and ruthless precision. Pat’s introduction to billiards turned into a serious pursuit as a teenager, and it didn’t take long before his natural competitiveness and analytical mindset started separating him from the crowd. As he has often been described, he wasn’t just playing to win; he was playing to understand.

That drive followed him into adulthood, and into the most important personal partnership of his life. Pat married Diane, and by his own accounts she was a steady, supportive presence as he chased the unpredictable path of competitive pool and later built a business that would serve the entire sport. In a game filled with nomadic schedules, late nights, and financial uncertainty, Pat’s story stands out for the way it balances ambition with gratitude. Again and again, his reflections return to the idea that legacy is not only what you build, but also who helps you build it and what you choose to value while you do.

As a player, Pat made his mark primarily in straight pool (14.1 continuous) during the 1970s and early 1980s, competing in an era packed with iconic names and uncompromising excellence. He won notable titles, including the 1979 Eastern States 14.1 Championship, and earned the kind of respect that only comes from performing under pressure against the best in the world. The four-part Legends of the Cue conversation also highlights a key truth about Pat that many newer fans may not fully appreciate: before he became “the Accu-Stats guy,” he was a formidable competitor who understood greatness from the player’s chair, not just from behind a camera. In later recollections he’s spoken about memorable battles with legends like Steve Mizerak, which serve as reminders that his relationship with the sport has always been personal.

But it was Pat’s unique combination of player’s insight and statistician’s mindset that led to his most enduring contribution. In 1983, he introduced the Total Performance Average (TPA), a statistical system designed to measure professional-level execution with a clarity that traditional scorekeeping could never provide. In an age before advanced analytics became common across sports, Pat was building a method to quantify performance in pool: shot-making, errors, and the real difference between “it looked good” and “it was good.” TPA didn’t just add numbers; it added a shared language for understanding excellence. Over time, it became a widely recognized benchmark for elite play.

From there, the story expands into the work that has shaped generations: Accu-Stats Video Productions. Established to document matches for statistical analysis, Accu-Stats evolved into something much bigger, an archival engine for the entire sport. Accu-Stats recorded and preserved an extraordinary library of professional matches, more than 1,000 tournament recordings spanning decades and capturing many of the greatest performances ever produced on a pool table. For fans, it became must-watch material. For players, it became a training library. For historians, it became the closest thing the game has to a living museum.

In the Legends of the Cue episodes, Pat describes the evolution of production itself, from early, simpler recordings to an increasingly sophisticated standard built through necessity, experimentation, and a refusal to accept “good enough.” He was instrumental in transforming match footage from silent documentation into compelling viewing, helped along by legendary voices such as Billy Incardona, Grady Mathews, and Danny DiLiberto, who brought analysis, humor, and authenticity to the booth and helped create a viewing experience that educated and entertained at the same time. That willingness to adapt, to turn “how can we capture this?” into “how can we present this well?”, became a hallmark of Pat’s impact. He didn’t merely preserve history; he made it accessible.

Pat’s influence also extends into event stewardship. In 2016, he assumed promotion and management of the U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship from founder Barry Behrman, guiding the event until 2019, when it was sold to Matchroom Pool. And in 2019, he created the International Open, now regarded as one of the premier professional events in the United States, another example of Pat’s commitment not just to documenting greatness, but to creating stages where greatness can occur.

In 2022, Pat sold Accu-Stats to Mike Howerton, a move that reflected both the scale of what he had built and his desire to ensure the library’s future in responsible hands. Even so, Pat’s connection to the sport remained active, continuing involvement with major productions and streams, and maintaining relationships with the tournaments and people that shaped his life in pool. His career is a rare arc: competitor to innovator, documentarian to promoter, craftsman to curator, always guided by the same principle that has followed him since childhood: if it matters, it’s worth doing carefully.

The broader cue-sports world has repeatedly recognized that contribution. Pat was inducted into the BCA Hall of Fame in 2008 (Meritorious Service), an honor that reflects not only what he accomplished, but what he gave to the game and its community. More recently, he was voted the 2025 CueSports Hall of Fame “Industry Titan”, a modern affirmation that his fingerprints are all over the way today’s fans experience professional pool.

Yet what makes Pat Fleming such a compelling Legends of the Cue guest isn’t only the resume, it’s the humanity behind it. In the concluding episode of the series, he speaks openly about gratitude, legacy, and the simple idea of contribution: building something lasting, not for ego, but for the people who love the game, today, and decades from now. Whether he’s recounting the intensity of straight-pool battles, the logistical madness of tournament production, or the quiet satisfaction of preserving moments for viewers who weren’t even born when those matches were played, Pat’s story lands in the same place: pool is worth caring for.

Pat Fleming didn’t just count balls, he counted moments, and in doing so, he helped make sure the greatest moments in cue-sports history could outlive the fleeting night they occurred. For fans of Legends of the Cue, he represents the rare guest who embodies multiple chapters of the sport: a player who understood the pressure, an inventor who changed the conversation, and a historian who ensured that future generations could see, study, and be inspired by the game at its highest level.