Justin Bergman - Part 4 (Mosconi Memories and Unfinished Business)

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Did it get any better the next year when you went to the Tropicana in Vegas?

Justin Bergman 0:18

In terms of pressure in the case, it was more people. Yeah, way less pressure. Way less pressure. Because now I'm at least somewhat familiar with it, you know. Friendly crowd. Understand, yeah, friendlier crowd. And we did a lot better. We just played a lot better. We had a little better team too, I think.

Mike Gonzalez 0:37

Yeah. Well, what were some of your favorite matches as you look back on your uh I guess you played in four of them. You had a chance to play in a fifth and then COVID came along, huh?

Justin Bergman 0:46

Yeah, yeah. Probably my best moment is probably playing doubles with Skylar and winning, or you know, beating Appleton. That was pretty, pretty good a good win for me because he was like number one in the world at the time. So and it was the last match of the day.

Mark Wilson 1:04

I will add one part of this Appleton thing. Okay, Appleton hasn't missed a ball in three years, and the crowd, and we're starting to fall behind just slightly, and then there's a lot of distractions, even in America. And so I'm nervous, and and so I want to get a hold of Justin's attention briefly. So I wait till he comes down right to the TV area where there's no public around. And I'm kind of nervous, and I just want to like, you know, just concentrate on the break and don't let the cue ball get away, you know. And I just wanted to have just a couple words, not that he doesn't know, because I wouldn't have put him on the team if he needs any coaching. But still for it was more for me to be reassured, you know, that I had his attention, that he was focused on the match and not the uh present circumstances. And so uh yeah, I'll never forget it. I was nervous and he walked up and I got him by himself, and he looked me straight in the eye as I was just getting ready to tell him, and he goes, Mark, I got this and went on. I was like, Oh, okay, good enough. You know, and sure as hell, he went out there and beat him. And it's like, oh God, how validating that was. And Appleton's no giveaway. That is a super tough match there. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 2:17

Yeah. I didn't really go back and check the records, Justin. What would you say your uh overall record was across four Moscone's? Oh, it's not good.

Justin Bergman 2:25

No, but no, I'd say I think usually I would go like one and one in the singles and then like one and two, like one win, two losses, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 2:37

You'd rather not play big stakes or race to fives, right? Those are tough.

Justin Bergman 2:41

Yeah, I mean, it it's not really the best, you know, test of, you know, skill or whatever, but I feel like I played good. I I think there was, you know, a day or two where I definitely didn't play great. But overall, I feel like, you know, I played as good or better than almost any uh anybody on the European team.

Mark Wilson 3:02

Yeah. I think Neils made the nine on the break against you, didn't he? One time that steal a match Hill Hill. And yeah. There was a couple misfortunes in there, but it wasn't, it was more it wasn't that Justin played bad at all. That was not the case. And the first time you play in a Moscone Cup, you're gonna miss a couple extra balls that you normally don't, just because it's it's so overwhelming mentally to stay focused on that ball, and then you get general and you just hit it at the pocket rather than the heart of the pocket, and then all of a sudden you've wobbled it or missed it. And uh and so but then you kind of get settled into it and he took to it. But the first year it was him and Justin Hall on the team as the rookies. And I I know they they they're skilled enough, but I don't know if the the conditions will deprive them of the opportunity to do well, you know. But as it turned out, well, Justin Hall doesn't worry about a thing to begin with, and then Justin Bergman only slightly more, you know, where John Schmidt chewed his fingernails down to the end, you know. So and and me too, you know. So but but nevertheless, uh they absolutely came through and uh uh it was it was just a uh it was a great experience overall. It was sad that we lost. I I was heartbroken. I'll never forget the next day after working at it all year. I just felt like uh I couldn't be happy, and I was going to Liverpool to see the Beatles thing that I've been looking forward to all year, but it wasn't a happy day for me, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 4:28

It was a it was an odd feeling. Well, you know, I know we've seen it on the golf side with the Ryder Cup where there's there's players that just sort of rise to the occasion. It's almost like Michael Jordan had another gear, and some players just they they just show that other gear in certain situations. Do you you see that with certain players too in the Moscone Cup where guys just have been able to take it up a notch?

Mark Wilson 4:53

Yeah.

Justin Bergman 4:53

Jason Shaw, like, he he plays great in that event. You know, I think he has like an 80 or 90 percent, you know, win rate or something crazy. Josh Filler, too. But you you need some luck, you know, in a race to five. You're not gonna win. You gotta get you gotta be lucky enough to even get the chances to win, you know. There there's a few matches that I lost, like Mark Gray, you know. I just I feel like I'm playing I feel like I'm gonna rob him if we've got to play an hour's worth of pool. And I just didn't get a chance to even shoot, really, you know. So you gotta have some luck too.

Mike Gonzalez 5:36

Yeah, yeah. Well, you were able to play on a winning team, which by the way is probably one of the uh last winning teams we saw from the US in the in the Moscone Cup. That was in 2019. You were playing in Vegas again at the at Mandalay Bay. So uh contrast that experience, at least being on the winning side uh uh to your previous experiences in the Moscone Cup.

Justin Bergman 5:59

Yeah, that was that was great to be able to beat him. I think they actually won it in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen. And y yeah, it was because we won it back to back. So but I wasn't on it that year. But yeah, it was it was definitely something I always dreamed of as being a part of the winning team.

Mike Gonzalez 6:20

And you had hoped to experience it again and uh what'd you do? Get COVID right before the event? Yeah. Yeah, I tested uh positive for COVID so I didn't get to go. Yeah. So they had it did they have it all through the COVID period or they skip a year or two?

Justin Bergman 6:35

I don't even remember. No, th they were gonna skip, but they ended up having it with no fans.

Mike Gonzalez 6:41

Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, that first year. Yeah. Uh maybe two years. Yeah, yeah. So uh we we'll come back to this because we we talked about uh earlier about uh you know kind of what current day looks like for you as you have an eye toward qualifying again. You'd love to have that experience again, and of course that means that you probably have to change your schedule a little bit and compete in some some things that uh you know you you weren't necessarily competing in that much because you preferred not traveling as much as some of the other players. So take us through more today what you're focused on, uh what commitments you have, what leagues or or schedules you're playing in uh with an eye toward uh maybe getting on that team again.

Justin Bergman 7:26

Yeah. So I got asked if I would, you know, be, you know, if I would even consider playing the Moscone Cup this year, and I said, uh yeah, absolutely. And I said I didn't really want to, you know, play the full matroom schedule, you know. I didn't want to go to forty tournaments a year where some of them are paying five grand, ten grand, and you gotta spend, you know, three or four thousand to go. I said I'd like to go to, you know, four or five of the bigger ones. And I said I might go to, you know, one or two internationally, and if that would be enough, you know, and they said yeah, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 8:10

Is this match room you were you were having these discussions with?

Justin Bergman 8:14

Uh somebody with um not like match room itself.

Mike Gonzalez 8:19

Okay, all right. But it was something that said, okay, well that that could probably work for us in terms of having enough experience in these events to give you some consideration for the team, huh?

Justin Bergman 8:28

Yeah. They thought that it it would be enough to make it on point, you know. Americans haven't been in, you know, doing all that great on the on the match room tour.

Mark Wilson 8:39

Yeah.

Justin Bergman 8:39

But i i it's not designed for American pla like the tight pockets and you know, the break rules. Right. Yeah. We're at a big disadvantage there.

Mike Gonzalez 8:49

Yeah. Well, Mark brought up earlier this uh tournament that just ended in St. Louis. I'm sorry I wasn't able to make the trip, but he was just raving about it because he's seen a lot of events and how they've been managed over the years and seemed quite impressed. From your perspective, did you see the same thing?

Justin Bergman 9:05

Oh yeah, one of the smooth best ran tournaments I've ever been a part of. Really professional. Um, you know, a lot of these tournaments nowadays they got us playing eight matches a day, you know, from nine a.m. to one a.m. And then you gotta be back at, you know, up at seven after playing, you know, what what other sport? Like imagine like tennis, you know, hey, you're gonna play a twelve hour match and then you gotta be back here tomorrow, you know, playing you know, it just wouldn't happen. But like Predator had it where you're playing one match a day, maybe two, you know, maybe a morning match and then an evening match. And I I love that. I like their scheduling, the payouts are great, they're putting a lot of money into the game. Um there's multiple events for the players, which I think is great. Right. You know, it kind of sucks traveling, you know, across the world and you get beat and you you didn't even do nothing wrong. You know, you played perfect pool and you're out of the tournament. That happens a lot. These guys are so good. So it's nice that you got three events to play in.

Mike Gonzalez 10:15

Yeah, so yeah, you know, they had uh all that mixed doubles as an example. W was there some overlap or they keep those relatively separate so you didn't play like a mixed doubles event in the morning and then two hours later you had to go play a single somewhere?

Justin Bergman 10:27

Yeah. No, they they did a great job with that. I don't think there was any overlap. I mean there there was if you were in like, you know, all three at one time, because they had not everybody was in the banks, that was only invitational. But that you know, I there might have been one day where you had to play like three, three or four matches, but wasn't bad.

Mike Gonzalez 10:48

Yeah, yeah. Did you play in three disciplines in that tournament? I did.

Mark Wilson 10:52

Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 10:53

That's including the mixed doubles.

Justin Bergman 10:55

Yeah. Yeah. The Banks doubles and uh World A ball. Yeah, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 11:03

You had a good run in the banks, as I remember.

Justin Bergman 11:06

Yeah, I think I semi-finals. I lost to uh Fedor.

Mark Wilson 11:10

Okay, okay. He beat Lee Van Corteza, Shane Van Boning, and then Justin Hall. I think you won those three matches in the banks, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then who beat you?

Justin Bergman 11:22

Uh Fedor. Fedor, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 11:25

Mark and I were texting back and forth. He had just seen one of your matches. I said, I think he's got Fedor next, and Mark Mark wasn't sure, but that's who you had in Banks next. And then you played uh what, nine ball?

Justin Bergman 11:37

Um no, then that was uh oh yeah, it was ten balls or ten ball, ten balls doubles ten ball. Yeah, okay. I didn't Yeah, I didn't even have a partner until a week two weeks before the tournament.

Mike Gonzalez 11:49

Yeah, did you know her at all?

Justin Bergman 11:52

Never met her. Um but I've been talking to uh these guys that you know they're involved with CTBA Cloth, that's a big sponsor now for Matroom. Um they're from China. They also universal cues also. So I've been talking to them a lot about uh sponsorship. Um I just asked them, I said, Do you know anybody from China that's coming that needs a partner? And at first they said, We think everybody kinda already has one, but you know, we'd we'll ask around and you know, they said sorry, we couldn't come up with anything, but if you give us more notice next time we'll definitely help you out. Then about about a week later they messaged me and they said food, you know, is available. And I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll play with her. Yeah, yeah. She's like a 770 far ya, you know, like that's like number eight in the world for women. And she won the women's world in 2010 and 2012. And then had three kids and took like eight years off.

Mike Gonzalez 12:59

Gotcha, okay.

Justin Bergman 13:00

And th this is really her first year back playing like full time.

Mike Gonzalez 13:04

Okay. All right. H was that a fun experience? A little different, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes they're not leaving you the way that you'd leave yourself. And uh did you have to talk much about where you wanted that next ball to be positioned or anything like that, or just you kind of pointed.

Justin Bergman 13:18

I practiced with her for 15 minutes, you know, one day, like the day before that was that was it. And we kept we're talking through the translator app. And and I told her through the translator app, I said, play your game, you know. You don't have to ask me. Like, you're you know, you're the eighth best player in the world, like you know how to play pool. Yeah, yeah. I and I think that's probably what hurts a lot of the teams is too much talking. I think it did hurt us a couple times not being able to talk. Right. But you know, I it probably helped us in in other games.

Mark Wilson 13:59

Yeah. She was a good shot maker. She made she bailed you out a few times and you bailed her out, and it was a it was remarkable, and it was kinda they they know how to play. Play your game, and Justin will make the ball. If he gets you bad, then you're just gonna have to make the ball, and that's exactly how it went down. They didn't waste any time trying to it looks like two APA threes out there trying to decide how to play pool. It looks so amateur-ish. They know how to play. So just do your shot. Yeah. Whatever it is.

Mike Gonzalez 14:28

So take us through uh kind of a lead up to the Moscone Cup, I guess, coming up in the fall, right? So what other events have you got coming up that you're gonna be involved in?

Justin Bergman 14:38

I'll be playing well, my fri I'm leaving in like two weeks to play the uh Ultimate Pool Florida Open. Um you don't get Moscone points for that. That's separate, separate thing. But uh for Moscone Cup, I'll be playing uh the International Open this year, the Arizona Open, which is August 13th through the 17th, I believe. Um then I go back to Florida for the Florida Open, and then back to Arizona for a match room ranking event in Yuma, Arizona, yeah, and then the US Open, which is in Frisco, Texas this year.

Mike Gonzalez 15:19

Yeah. Yeah, so do you know what specifically what you've got to do, how you've gotta perform to get a spot on that team?

Justin Bergman 15:29

Yeah, no. I mean, I I'm kind of thinking if I can get like a a few top tens, that should be enough. You know. I I think. Yeah, I didn't know if there was a precise science to it, Mark. It kind of depends on how the other Americans do also. You know, if I'm the only American getting in a top ten, you know, then I'm pretty much in, I think. Yeah. But if you know, if I get like a tenth and a couple of them are winning and getting a third, then maybe, you know, they'll get picked.

Mike Gonzalez 16:04

Yeah. It's probably not as scientific as like writer cup qualification, Mark. Is there more subjectivity involved?

Justin Bergman 16:10

Changes every year.

Mark Wilson 16:12

There's no structure. It used to be strict points for three, and then the captain got to pick two, and but then that changed, and then all of a sudden now we got a European, we got one guy from Russia playing on the American team after playing twice for Europe, which but anyway, just it's every time it changes, so nobody really knows.

Mike Gonzalez 16:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit about your involvement with this ultimate pool USA League. Uh what is it? How'd you get involved?

Justin Bergman 16:40

Yeah. So it started off in England and then they brought it here. It's um, you know, it's a it's more league-based. I own a St. Louis area and Peoria area. It's uh 30 minutes a match, 30-second shot clock. I mean, it's really a fun format, you know. I I mean, I think it's the future of League Pool in America. Big money, there, it's $100,000 for first place. I mean, you know, I think the APA is like $20,000. And they're gonna keep, I think next year they're gonna try to $200,000 for first place. So but they also have like a pro tour or or tour, you know, that they're doing, and they're I mean, they're putting a lot of money into that also. And who's behind that? I've never met the owner. I've only met like the you know, CEO and president. The CEO, Scott Ryan, is a good friend of mine, super smart guy, um, and and does everything he can for the pool player. So he's got my support. How much of your time is that taking right now? Um, a decent amount. I'm usually at league two times, two or three times a week here. Okay. On my phone a lot.

Mike Gonzalez 17:56

Yeah.

Justin Bergman 17:57

Um would you say it's getting good traction in the U.S.? Definitely. I think we went from having four team, four or five teams last year in St. Louis to we got 40 or 50 now. And we're probably gonna have another 20 or 30 teams this new session in a month.

Mike Gonzalez 18:16

Yeah, so you you got that going. You got USAPL, you got APA, you got uh Siegel's new league. I don't know if it's getting much traction, but uh you like your chances uh against your competition?

Justin Bergman 18:28

I've only seen like a 30-second clip of Mike Siegel's league, so I can't really I can't say, but Yeah, yeah. Time will tell. Yeah, yeah. I like our chances. I the ultimate fool guys are they know what they're doing. They're way smarter than I am.

Mike Gonzalez 18:44

Yeah. Uh you're a brand ambassador with Brunswick, is that right?

Justin Bergman 18:48

Yeah, this year. Yeah, they picked me up and they've they've helped me out a ton.

Mike Gonzalez 18:54

You don't have room for a nine foot uh gold crown seven in your basement, huh?

Justin Bergman 18:59

I don't, but I would if I knock this wall out, and when I get them to give me this gold crown seven, that's what's gonna happen. I'm knocking this wall out. Yeah. So hopefully this year I can I can do that. Mark will come over and tear down that wall. Come on, Mark. This week. This week, come on over.

Mike Gonzalez 19:23

Yeah, besides Brunswick, anybody else you're working with?

Justin Bergman 19:27

Um, yeah. Uh Ultimate Pool also they they sponsor me. And now I just uh signed with uh jam up shirt company.

Mike Gonzalez 19:35

Apparel, right? Yeah. Allie's with Allie's with them.

Justin Bergman 19:38

Really? Yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah, there's I mean, I've been wearing their stuff for years now, so yeah. I'm glad to help them out. Did you know the owner before? I did. Yeah. Yeah. I actually stayed with him a a couple times on on the road. We've been f good friends for 15 years now. So good. I'm glad to be a part of them.

Mike Gonzalez 20:04

Before we put a bow on this and uh take you through our final three questions we like to ask everybody, anything else you'd like to talk about or cover?

Justin Bergman 20:12

I'm sure I'll think of it after we hang up. I can't think of anything right off the top of my head.

Mark Wilson 20:17

I have a question uh that uh Justin um and and don't be self-serving for me, but talk about your Moscone Cup lead up uh from 2014, 15, 16 to the other time that you played, the team gelling, the what the training looked like, what the preparation was. Just so fans can kind of have an idea what that amounts to.

Justin Bergman 20:42

Yeah. So we Mark took us to uh San Diego to the Navy SEAL base, and uh he really taught us about uh hard work and and teamwork, and um before probably a month or two before the Moscone Cup, every day he had us waking up at seven, eight in the morning. Eating tofu. And I'm you know not tofu, but he had us doing drills every day, and I was like, Oh my god, like I don't need to do drills, you know. And at the end of it, I was playing the best pool of my life. So he really was a big part of the reason why I was playing so good, you know, was his uh structure and and he knows what he's talking about.

Mark Wilson 21:33

Well, uh you know, to add to that, okay. Justin's not a 9 a.m. guy, just so you know. Not a and so but we wanted to have some I want some unity and some bonding of the team, and you got, you know, like say the first year it's him and Justin Hall, and they're 27 or something. And then you got John Schmidt and Shane Van Boning and Corey Doole, who are you know forties probably uh almost forty. And so there's quite a bit, and then you Got old guy here that's 60, okay, at the time, and so it was kind of a three-tiered thing, and so well anyway. Uh sometimes Justin Hall and Justin Bergman have a hard time finding practice, and so uh I'd say 10 a.m. and then oh no, 10 would come and go, and it's me, Van Boning, Cory Dool, and John Schmidt, and we're waiting for Berkman the Hall. And oh, I get pissed. And so uh and I did do this. If I say 10 a.m., and this is how silly this is, if you're one minute, if my phone says 1001, you're getting a fine and it's paid immediately. And so for everybody that's here, you pay them $20. Well, Van Boning loves it because he knows he's going to be on time and he knows there's no way the Bergman.

Justin Bergman 22:46

Jane made about a grand that week that month.

Mark Wilson 22:50

Without it, without any exaggeration, Justin Bergman is the most fined player in U.S. history. Now, if Justin Hall could have made the team a few more times, I think maybe Justin would have been second. You know, but but nevertheless. So uh the first day, Corey Doell comes in late, $80, $20 to each player. Then next day, his phone is next to mine, and the clock rolls up to 10 a.m. And Corey's saying, it's 10, it's 10, it's 10. I go, no, no, I said 10.01. And here comes uh Hall and Bergman in with their phones out, with the phones up, showing it's still 10, but they parked in handicap parking to get here on time. But and then uh talk a little bit about the the episode in uh Las Vegas with the walk-on girls.

Justin Bergman 23:36

Oh yeah, yeah, that I I still don't think that should have gone against me. But it did. Yeah, it did. Cost me a hundred. No, but you forgave us for that one.

Mark Wilson 23:51

Well, now here's what happened. Okay, Moscone Cup ends, I get all the stats from Pat Fleming for the day, and everybody gets three or four hours to go out and decompress, have dinner with your family or friends, whatever it might be. And then we have an 8 p.m. practice. Now, it's not that the guys really need the practice so much, but it's Las Vegas, and it's the most distracting environment to play in. And if they go out and party or gamble or something, it takes away from perhaps the next day's Moscone Cup performance, which I'm really desperately trying to win. So, uh, okay, so they're supposed to show back up and let's say 8 p.m. So we got down about four. Okay, everybody meet at eight. Well, it just so happens that uh a couple of my players are missing to include Justin Bergman, two of them. And now I am boiling mad. And so it no and I could text them and call them a hundred times. They will not answer, no response, zero, and uh and we're here together. I am major pissed, and so time ticks on. Well, finally they make it there by 9 30. And I'm fuming. So now and it was it was not for uh everyone's ears to hear because it was pretty vulgar, but nevertheless, in this particular instance, they'd gone out with the uh walk-on girls. Oh sure. And I kind of really if they were ever gonna miss, I can kind of go along with that one. Okay. The other ones, no.

Justin Bergman 25:14

Was that not true, Justin? No, yeah, yeah. You get you you gotta take that chance. Okay.

Mike Gonzalez 25:22

It was a good trade-off, good bet, huh? As your father, I kind of approved. Yeah. Okay. Small price to pay.

Mark Wilson 25:30

Now we had some fun times and all the experiences we shared, and while we didn't win, which is uh heartbreaking for me, and I I always dreamed of coaching Europe so I could get a win in there. But anyway, of all the times we did develop a lot, and and I really think had we sustained that over another five years, we could have been very relevant again without having to reach out to other countries to supply players. Without short of the structure, it's just gonna be hard because uh they're more disciplined and structured than we are and been doing it longer.

Mike Gonzalez 26:01

Yeah. But what a great experience for you guys to look back on uh and something that you've shared together that uh you'll never forget.

Mark Wilson 26:09

To this day, there's only been 45 or 48 players that ever represented the United States in the Moscone Cup, and that's after more than 30 years, 31, 32 years, something like that.

Mike Gonzalez 26:18

Yeah, yeah. And you know, long after you guys are gone, this deal will be bigger and bigger. I mean, you can't even imagine how big this thing's gonna get in 50 years, probably. Just like the Ryder Cup. Started out, nobody knew what they were getting into. Kind of like you first playing, Mark. I mean, you didn't have any idea what this thing was gonna become, and it's just gonna get bigger and bigger, I think. Completely bewildered.

Mark Wilson 26:38

Yeah. By the time that the first one was over with, I could say, wow, that's incredible. And I practiced hard leading up to it. I would have practiced even harder had I known what that was.

Justin Bergman 26:49

Yeah. Yeah. Mart knows my aunt Marcia. She never liked pool. She used to always, you know, tell me, you need to have a backup plan. You need to go to, you know, you need to go to college, you need to do this. You can't just play pool. And she thought I was crazy for playing pool. And she went to the first Moscowny Cup and she was hooked. That's the only pool event that, you know, really like non-pool players really get behind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Wilson 27:18

We often laugh about Aunt Marcia knowing more obscure pool players than Justin and I do. She watches it all the time, but she's rattling off names.

Justin Bergman 27:27

I don't know. She's all about it. She's going to Florida. Yeah. She goes to more tournaments than I do, probably now.

Mark Wilson 27:35

She's a blessing. I know. She did turn up. Her and Danielle turned up at the Derby one year, and I go, Well, where's Justin? Well, he's not coming.

Justin Bergman 27:42

Okay. Yeah, she she loves it. She loves to watch pool. Yeah. That's great.

Mike Gonzalez 27:47

And that's because Moscone cut. We've uh we've really enjoyed this uh walk back down memory lane with you just to talk about your career and your life, and uh, we wouldn't let you go before we asked you these three final questions. And Mark, maybe I'll ask the first one, let you ask this the the last two. Would that be okay?

Mark Wilson 28:05

That'd be great.

Mike Gonzalez 28:06

All right. So Justin, you're 20 years old again. But you know then what you know now. Would you have done anything differently?

Justin Bergman 28:18

I mean, I'm happy with my life. I probably would have definitely invested my money a little bit smarter. But pool-wise, I would have I would have tried probably tried to play more events, you know, and practice a little bit harder on my game, but overall I'm pr I'm pretty happy.

Mike Gonzalez 28:38

That works. All right, Mark, question number two.

Mark Wilson 28:41

All right, Justin, we'll give you one career mulligan, one shot that you could do over that might have made a difference. Where would you take it?

Justin Bergman 28:49

I don't know. It's a good it's a good question. I'd have to think about it. Like I like I said, I I wish I would have played more major events, you know, when I was in the prime of, you know, in my uh early twenties and late twenties. You know. I think I could have won a US Open or or two had I played all of them, but you know, probably that.

Mark Wilson 29:13

You finish very high in a lot of the events, and plus your career is not over with, actually, just coming to your prime. Forty-five years old is probably your prime and pool up until in your mid-50s, early fifties. Well, that's good to know. Yeah. Mike LeBron won the U.S. Open when he was 56, I think, or 57. So you know, because pool's so intricate and difficult, uh, it takes that long. It's not like basketball 25 years old. You know, baseball like that.

Mike Gonzalez 29:39

Yeah, we we might have to have you back to finish your story at some point. You win a few more big events, right?

Mark Wilson 29:44

I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Here's the final one. Okay. How would Justin Bergman like to be remembered?

Justin Bergman 29:53

As a good guy, and that hopefully the junior players look up to, and that I left uh a good positive impact on uh on pool.

Mark Wilson 30:06

Well done. Justin, you know I'm proud of you and that I love you, and thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

Justin Bergman 30:13

Love you too. Thank you.

Mike Gonzalez 30:15

Great to be with you.

Justin Bergman 30:16

Yeah, nice meeting you.

Mike Gonzalez 30:18

It's uh such a privilege to add your story to all of the legends of the queue that we've interviewed on the show. So thank you for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's a pleasure.

Allison Fisher 30:29

Thank you for listening to another episode of Legends of the Q. If you like what you hear, wherever you listen to your podcast, including Apple and Spotify, please follow, subscribe, and spread the word. Give our podcast a five-star rating and share your thoughts. Visit our website and support our full history project. Until our next golden break with more Legends of the Cube. So long, everybody.