Eddie "The Knoxville Bear" Taylor

Fantastic video! Even way past his prime you can tell what a great player Taylor was.

PoolBum said:

Fantastic video! Even way past his prime you can tell what a great player Taylor was.

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I was at his last birthday....Grady and randi rang me and invited me as it was not far from where I was going to school. There were probably players there I didn’t even know who they were lone kid in the joint and old as dirt still smiling thickest coke bottle glasses I ever seen and there’s Eddie teaching me some really great banks and zipping them in.

5/6 months later he was gone. Believe around fall of 2004 or 05


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shayne87 said:

Great video, thanks Max Eberle

EDDIE TAYLOR | 1993 BCA HOF Banquet, The Legends of Pool, Bank Lessons, Trick Shots & Pool Stories



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcFgsP-u7vA

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One of the most enjoyable videos I have watched in a long time.
Thank you Max Eberle and thank you Shayne87.

Damn, what a player Eddie was!
And what a thorough gentleman!
You clearly can see how respected he was, but also how respectful he was of others.
His banking tidbits and brief shots really give insight to his
magnificent stroke, and his banking prowess.

I currently own two of Eddie's cues. Both have his name on the buttsleeve.

One is a fancy Ginacue ivory 8-pointer made for Eddie in 1965. Rhoda and I had dinner with Ernie Gutierrez and his wife Luz back in 2003 in Marina del Ray at the ICCS, and we had a great conversation about Eddie.

The second one is a Schick cue that I bought from Eddie when he visited Tulsa at the Billiard Palace (or maybe Magoo's, can't remember for sure) around 15-18 years ago. He is playing with this cue in the video for 8-10 minutes when he is at Schick's pool room in Shreveport. The cue is dated 1994, and made right after he went into the HOF. The cue has crossed ivory cues in the buttsleeve and inlaid ivory cues in the points. The crossed cues are like crossed swords, weapons for the table! This cue has Eddie's It's George case along with it, and has Eddie's name in the end cap. Eddie wrote me a nice note about the cue, and about how much he liked Bill Schick.

Two great cues, made for one of the biggest giants in our genre's history by two of the giants of cuemaking history.
Prized possessions both.

Will Prout

Here are a couple of pictures of the cues. :thumbup:
Will Prout

Boy Fats had himself a much younger wife!!!

When Eddy and I were on the Road together he had a new Rambo cue.
It stayed in the trunk of the car for months.

Never saw him play with it. He could play perfect with a house cue.

In Houston on night. We went into the Luelle pool room. There was a ring 9 ball game on the first table. 2 dollar 5 dollar five and nine. Eddy asked to get in and went to the wall rack to get a house cue.

The room was full of people and every table had several players.

The only cue Eddy could find that had a tip on it was so crooked and the tip was worn down so that part of the ferrule was bent over.

He never missed one ball and broke the game.

That’s how good a player Eddy was.

Bill S.

Guys around my neck o da woods told tales of Eddie stopping thru VA to share a bottle and perhaps find some action.

There was a story of a road player from ny who came thru and said he was on his way to play the bear and was looking for bank pool warm-up action. The bear relieved him of his desire to travel farther, and the funding to do so as well.

Legend has it he told the guy he had no business looking for Eddie taylor.

Great post
thanks to Will Prout for the pictures of his cues

I always sell everything and live to regret it

I had a picture of Eddie that he wrote me a long
inscription and concluded it by offering to send
a cab for me if I would come to Shrevport and play

pool with him,

Eddie would spend hours showing me shots,mostly banks

the thing that stands out to me is that after each shot,i asked
what kind of English did you use?

He always said center ball

this was a great treat

thanks for posting it
dean

Man... that was SO much fun to watch. Taylor has always been one of my favorite old school players, I have a couple of his autographs (one on his One Pocket HOF Induction poster).

It's a shame that nothing like this exist with Lassiter or some of the other old greats, Caras, Crane, etc I would love to hear more old stories from these legends!

A legend from Tennessee! I saw a Paradise Diamond King with his name in the butt, wonder if he ever used it?

Was there ever a better banker? Lots of winners in Banks, but he was a Champion.

Wow. I just watched the entire video and thoroughly enjoyed it. And not once, not a single time did I hear this man speak ill of anyone. Thanks Max Eberle and Shane87.

Well worth every minute of the two hours..many thanks!

Eddie Taylor

greyghost said:

I was at his last birthday....Grady and randi rang me and invited me as it was not far from where I was going to school. There were probably players there I didn’t even know who they were lone kid in the joint and old as dirt still smiling thickest coke bottle glasses I ever seen and there’s Eddie teaching me some really great banks and zipping them in.

5/6 months later he was gone. Believe around fall of 2004 or 05


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

He was a special player, that's for sure.
That dude with the big azz beard from the BCA looked awful familiar???
I have a video that Alf Taylor had sent me years ago.
Thanks to Max Eberle for posting that nice memory.

Black-Balled said:

Guys around my neck o da woods told tales of Eddie stopping thru VA to share a bottle and perhaps find some action.

There was a story of a road player from ny who came thru and said he was on his way to play the bear and was looking for bank pool warm-up action. The bear relieved him of his desire to travel farther, and the funding to do so as well.

Legend has it he told the guy he had no business looking for Eddie taylor.

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I heard that after Eddie relieved him of his money guy said hell I don't know if I need to go on to Knoxville to play the Eddie
the bear.
Eddie looked at him and said we can get in the car and drive on down to Knoxville if u think it will do u any good.

That's when guy realized who he had been playing.

Great memories of Eddie Taylor. I'll give a few. One, he didn't lose to very many people. He showed up many times at Jack and Jill's in Arlington, Virginia.

I did see him lose to one person on ABC's Wide World of Sports in about 1966. It was to someone named Lassiter. (LOL) The next year, Fall of 1967, at Oxon Hill High School, Maryland, Eddie played Luther again, two matches in straight pool. Luther dominated, won both.

You may not have noticed it, but at about a minute, Red Jones was with Eddie Taylor, and later in the video, Eddie gives plenty a shout out to Red Jones. You might not know a lot about Red Jones, but not only was he a pool player, but he manned the Air Force desk at the White House in the late 60s. Red Jones organized the Taylor/Lassiter match in Maryland that year, with the help of a few friends.

One of those friends was none other than Bill (Weenie Beanie) Staton, who did some of the trick shots at an intermission during the pool match. Believe it was a Gandy table they set up for the matches.

Had it not been for watching Taylor and Lassiter in those early years, I'm not sure I'd have gotten into pool, but maybe. But if you saw Taylor and Lassiter in those years, you had to get in the game. That's all.

All the best,
WW

Just in case you hadn't seen this, a glimpse of the knowledge of Eddie Taylor.

All the best,
WW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEp0xVP7w0

I was reminded of how Eddie stood tall at the ball
his head appears to be at least a foot above the cue

his arm hangs down,the elbow is below the shoulder

the modern idea is to almost get the chin touching the cue stick

I wonder if it makes any difference

I really don't know

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Low500 said:

I saw Taylor play many times when I was a kid.
This is a wonderful video....a pleasure to see. The producers did great work for this to be as professional as it is.
I wonder how many of the fat bellied "expert instructors" would say how wrong Taylor played the game........"he dropped his elbow", etc.
And not a one of them would've had a prayer against the Taylor Man.....not one of 'em.
Eddie didn't book too many losers.
:thumbup:

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they would say "just think how much better he could have played if he didnt drop his elbow!!!!!!"......:grin-square: