In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I made my pilgrimage to the bar for green beer—and in the process, spent some time playing pool on a likewise green table. Hence, this post is dedicated to pool.
…But only the obscure stuff.
Specifically: baize.
Baize is that green fabric that hurts your elbows if you lean on a pool table wrong. (My grandma has a pool table, and that happened to me a lot as a kid. Mostly from crawling across the top of the table when the adults weren’t looking.)
According to dictionary.com, baize is “a soft, usually green, woolen or cotton fabric resembling felt, used chiefly for the tops of billiard tables.” In verb form, baize means “to line or cover with baize.” (Even though it’s in the dictionary as a verb, I’m unconvinced of its legitimacy.) Etymologically, it seem that baize is derived from “bay,” which is a reddish-brown color. Not exactly sure how we got to green from reddish-brown, but okay.
According to this definition, baize was first produced in England c. 1560, by French and Dutch refugees. It is a woolen (sometimes cotton) fabric napped to resemble felt. According to Wikipedia, the purpose of the coarse fabric is to slow the travel of objects, such as pool balls. The fabric is available in varying weights and thicknesses—the heavier the fabric, the greater the friction and the slower a ball will travel across its surface. Sleeker fabric, often “worsted” baize, offers less friction.
Besides pool tables, baize traditionally is used to line shelves, drawers, and card tables. It is also used to help soundproof doors: apparently, people used to tack baize to the door between the servants’ quarters in a home and the family’s rooms.
Fun fact: felt, which baize is meant to resemble, is the oldest textile known to mankind. It is made with felt, water, and agitation. (If you put a woolen sweater in the washing machine, you may end up with a felt sweater when it comes out!) In Central Asia, nomadic tribes use felt to create structures called “yurts”—basically, big felt tents.
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