THE WRITING ON (AND OFF) THE WALL MASSEY'S LIFE A TRICKY TALE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

If all goes according to his script, Mike Massey will razzle and dazzle his way to the World Artistic Pool Championship title when the best trick-shot players alive meet this week at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens.

You've more than likely channel surfed into him during his dozens of appearances on ESPN - the bearded, 6-foot-4 Tennessee native with the flashy vest, jumping balls one-handed off the table and into a cowboy boot, knocking in 10 at a time, curving shots with so much English you'd swear it was going to bore a hole into the cloth.

Billiards Digest has called him the best trick-shot player of all time. He has circled the planet showing off his talents, written instructional books and put out videos on the subject, and found out the other day he's going to be inducted into the Billiards Hall of Fame.

And you want to know what his ultimate trick would be? To have a script he's been working on, based loosely on his life, made into a movie. But it's not all fun and games for the 57-year old.

Massey, also a former 9-ball champion, would wander the country hustling in pool halls and bars, starting when he was 14, a year after he quit school. He lived ``day to day, with all the bad habits: smoking, drinking, gambling, pride, ego,'' he admits.

One time, he says he had LSD slipped into his drink, which caused him to hallucinate so badly, he thought he was dead for two years as he walked the streets talking to himself, sleeping in the woods, basically homeless. He turned to Christianity, pulled his life together and wants to help others turn their bad ways around. His movie is one way he thinks he can get his message across.

The working title, ``Louie and The Preacher,'' is about ``a pool-playing preacher who hustles the greedy to give to the needy, just like Robin Hood,'' Massey says.

As the script goes, Louie Yates is a former hard-core pool hustler who eventually turned to religion and got into prison ministries, using trick- shot pool to teach parables. He meets up with his old gambling partner, Max Harper, who wants to go on the road again. When the local mission for the homeless burns down near Christmas, Louie sees a higher calling for hustling again.

Can almost see Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder playing the parts, eh?

``I won't tell you how it ends, but there is a moral to this,'' says Massey, who has homes in Malibu and Park City, Utah, although he spends most of the year traveling to tournaments and exhibitions.

``It's all about giving back. One time in my life, I thought I was destined to be a drinker and hustler. But God showed me my talents that the devil tried to rob from me. I'm trying to turn this into a blessing.'' ...

--Darryl Strawberry, also trying to straighten himself up after years of drug abuse during his baseball career, actually was included on six sports writers' ballots last week for the 2005 Hall of Fame in his first year eligible. The two-time National League MVP and eight-time All Star didn't even crack the list of 50 names on the 2005 ballot for entrance in the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals.

The Pasadena-based nonprofit group, which has had 18 enshrinees over the past six years, has been called baseball's Left Coast Hall of Fame. It honors former players more for their unique impact on the game rather than the statistics they've compiled. The three new inductees will be announced in May.

There are a dozen first-timers on this year's ballot, including Don Zimmer, Jim ``Mudcat'' Grant, Ted ``Double Duty'' Radcliffe and ``Eight Men Out'' author Eliot Asinof. Those who have remained in contention for election are Bill Buckner, Dizzy Dean, Rod Dedeaux, Ted Giannoulas (aka, the San Diego Chicken), Tug McGraw, Mickey Rivers and Casey Stengel.

Information: www.baseballreliquary.org.