Melinda Bailey
Mike Page is the owner of the famously large Fargo Billiards in North Dakota and is also the genius behind the ranking system “FargoRate.” Let’s find out more about the man, the pool room, and the ranking system. Q: You can’t go anywhere in the pool world without tripping over the word “FARGO” these days. It looks like Fargo Ratings has some explosive growth and I want to get to that. But first I’d like to learn a little about you before FargoRate. You haven’t always been in North Dakota. Where did you grow up, and when did you get the pool bug?
A: I’m from New York, a town called Harrison in commuting distance from New York City along the New Haven line. Harrison had the rich neighborhood, and then it had my neighborhood, near the train station. I started playing pool around 12 at the town rec center, where the one Brunswick on the third floor was in constant use—mostly by the bigger and older kids. So my
friend and I mostly watched quietly— watched that is, until we figured out how to jimmy the fire door and climb the fire escape to get in when the building was closed. We spent countless hours in the closed building practicing in low light what we watched earlier. Q: What was it you watched? What game did they play?
Steve Ernst and Mike Page
10 | Billiards Buzz • October 2017