Keith McCready

At the 5th Sands Regent Open nine-ball tournament in Reno, Nevada, June 3–7, 1987, won by Earl Strickland, McCready was documented in the "Notable Matches" category by Accu-Stats because of his "brilliant and entertaining" performance, defeating Paul Brienza and Mike Sigel in the event.

In April 2005, he took a Joss Northeast Nine-ball Tour event at the Golden Cue in Albany, New York, winning the final match of the double-elimination format event against Canadian pool player Danny Hewitt. The first set was completely one-sided with Hewitt cruising to a 9-3 win over McCready. The second set was a complete turnaround for McCready as he took an early 7-4 lead and help off a late charge from Hewitt to win the match 9-7.

MCready resides on the East Coast and continues to compete professionally as well as putting on exhibitions for charity events. McCready holds the 2005 Virginia State Nine-Ball Championship title, which was held in Richmond.

In September 2003, the final match, Filipino Francisco Bustamante versus American Keith McCready, drew the largest crowd yet of the Falcon Cue Tour in Sterling, Virginia, where over 100 fans witnessed McCready defeat the Filipino pool champion, 9-7.

Accu-Stats Video Productions recorded a match when McCready defeated Filipino Champion Jose Parica at the 2003 US Open Nine-ball Championship and describes it as: "The most entertaining match that Accu-Stats has ever offered. Keith steals the show and the audience approval."

While records dating back to McCready's prime as a tournament player are scarce, according to Pool & Billiards magazine, dated December 1998, he was ranked 10th on the men's professional pool tour. Keith won about a half-dozen pro events, mostly in the 1980s. However, it was his high-stakes gambling that earned him the lion's share of his reputation as one of the most feared nine-ball players. With his charisma and gift of gab, he has been heralded as "pool’s ultimate entertainer" McCready plays for the crowd and believes that when there is audience involvement, it creates a better atmosphere.

In 1986, McCready starred as the character Grady Seasons, a fictional infamous, sharking hustler and top money-winner in all of pool, with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning film The Color of Money, loosely based on the novel by Walter Tevis (the sequel to The Hustler). In 1985, Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, and Scorsese's casting director, Gretchen Rennell, had come to Norfolk, Virginia, to the US Open Nine-ball Championship in search of actual pool personalities to play character roles. McCready was engaged in a stakes game with Filipino pool champion Efren Reyes and was selected to be in the movie because of his entertaining style of play. McCready had an established reputation in pool circles as one of the most feared money players in the nation.

McCready scored his first professional win, in October 1985, undefeated at the then-annual B.C. Open in Binghamton, New York, pocketing $25,000, which was considered a large purse for a pool tournament at that date. The venue featured capacity audiences each day. "A worthy champion and a colorful, exciting player, he deserved to win," writes pool veteran Grady Mathews.

On St. Patrick's Day in 1984, McCready won the Clyde Childress Memorial Nine-ball Tournament at The Maverick Club in Richmond, Kentucky, which had a star-studded field consisting of pool phenoms Earl "The Pearl" Strickland, Buddy Hall, Ronnie Allen, Allen Hopkins, St. Louis Louie Roberts, and Terry Bell. Handing Earl "The Pearl" an 11-to-2 thrashing earlier in the double-elimination pool tournament, McCready faced him in the finals. Strickland had been a dominating force on the American pool tournament trail, and racing to 11 games for the win, the score became tied, 9-9. McCready triumphed, running out the next two games to claim the victory.

Pool players go through definite streaks, according to Bruce Venzke of The National Billiard News, the oldest existing pool, billiard, and snooker publication in America: "Who can forget the one for Keith McCready." When the lines on the 1983 Lake Tahoe Classic were made on which players were the "Tahoe Favorites," McCready was described as "Mr. Cool, the Ultimate Nine-ball Player."

At one time considered among the top players in America, McCready has been a traveling tournament competitor and notorious hustler since the 1970s. From 2003 to 2006, McCready was a contributing writer to InsidePOOL Magazine and remains a pro competition contender, known for comedically interacting with the audience. He also had a supporting role as the boorish hustler Grady Seasons in the 1986 film The Color of Money.

In an era in American pool when gambling was a norm, "hustling...was a way of life." When McCready was in his prime and on top of his game, he spent the better part of the 1970s and 1980s traveling throughout the United States as a tournament competitor and hustler. Sometimes the tournament venues would be a gathering place for pool hustlers, and the main action would take place outside of the tournament. With his raconteur style, McCready eventually became a road player, attracting large crowds to his designated table when his appearance was known.

Keith McCready (born April 9, 1957) is an American professional pool player, nicknamed Earthquake.

On the 25th anniversary of The Color of Money, the German Touch Magazine wrote an article about the movie and included a four-page interview of McCready. It highlighted the influence the movie continues to have on pool 25 years later as well as how it has impacted McCready personally.