tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86451185063770224552024-03-13T22:56:09.667-07:00Untold Stories: Tom FoxThis is one of a series of pool history blogs hosted by author R.A. Dyer. Check back regularly for the newest interview excerpts, documents and other archival material related to pocket billiards history. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.poolhistory.com">www.poolhistory.com</a> or the main <a href="http://untoldstoriesbilliardshistory.blogspot.com/">Untold Stories</a> pool history blog.R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-17199433267210098482009-08-07T06:40:00.001-07:002009-08-07T06:40:56.040-07:00America's Best Ever Pool Player? You Decide<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh_wQOz3NFuyNpg9n5V7NVLfO8zitcsdPTJBHir0tKsULhfqNMrfdN77ZKgy-Gj_tnXxAfYPyFcAkHf7ZP7pw34Q7dt0b9ro098YqsAPksj53NDh0WStireDIPHhgY1YYqITSxmqOmMo-f/s1600-h/Johnny+Archer.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 182px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh_wQOz3NFuyNpg9n5V7NVLfO8zitcsdPTJBHir0tKsULhfqNMrfdN77ZKgy-Gj_tnXxAfYPyFcAkHf7ZP7pw34Q7dt0b9ro098YqsAPksj53NDh0WStireDIPHhgY1YYqITSxmqOmMo-f/s400/Johnny+Archer.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366846337021607074" /></a>Who is America's best ever pool player? The poll on the top right of the <a href="http://untoldstoriesbilliardshistory.blogspot.com/">pool history blog</a> lists some all-time favorites, including recent <a href="http://untoldstoriesbilliardshistory.blogspot.com/2009/06/archer-and-fisher-go-to-hall-of-fame.html">Hall of Fame inductee Johnny Archer</a>. I've left Willie Hoppe off the list because he was known as one of the best-ever billiards players, as opposed to one of the best-ever pool players. Neither have I included one of my personal favorites, <a href="http://untoldstoriesbilliardshistory.blogspot.com/2009/07/very-early-efren-reyes.html">Efren "Bata" Reyes</a>. As he's from the Philippines, I figured I'd save him for a future poll of the greatest international players. I've also tried to get a good mix of players from different eras. (Van Boening vs. Greenleaf?!) Vote early. Vote often. I'll leave the poll up for awhile. Also, if you have a write-in candidate, feel free to comment at the bottom of this post. I'll tally up the write-ins later, along with those listed on the ballot.R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-65594884506154334972007-08-18T23:17:00.000-07:002007-08-18T23:18:43.635-07:00Tom Fox letter to Wimpy LassiterThis is the first page of a letter from Tom Fox, which he sent to Wimpy Lassiter in 1969. Note that Fox mentions the unpublished manuscript, "Born on the Rail."</td> <!-- The Image & --> <!-- Image Title, Uploaded by --> <td style="padding-left:10px;vertical-align:top;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?id=86577" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/86577_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;"></a> <br /> <span style="font-size: 90%; margin-top: 0px;"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?id=86577">letter1_small</a> <br /> Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/48600084074@N01/">jakedyer</a>.R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-82066441214452426352007-08-18T23:16:00.000-07:002007-08-18T23:17:13.694-07:00Tom Fox grew up in New Orleans, just west of the riverBilliards writer Fox grew up in New Orleans. Karen, his wife, remembers recalls stories of his early life.<br /><br />Tom grew up in a very political household, and he loved sports. But he was groomed to be a politician. His dad died at 16, and he went to work at the race track. He learned about characters and gambling early, and when he was a boy, he would jump on his bike, and bike off to black funerals. And he loved music; and he grew up a block from the river, in Algiers in the west bank of the river; and he had the Mississippi-river understand of characters, and he knew how to get along with gamblers. He had an uncanny ability to observe. and report.R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-5715942760724348952007-08-18T23:15:00.000-07:002007-08-18T23:16:20.733-07:00Karen Fox remembers her first meeting with her late husband Tom Fox, the man who "discovered" Minnesota FatsKaren married Tom Fox in 1964, and stayed with him until his death in 1989. Tom worked in the sports department of the Evansville Courier and Press; she worked on the women's page. The following is from an interview in 2004. <br /><br />``During basketball season, I did color stories -- mostly high school sports -- of Evansville college games. The sports editors recruited a lot of us young women to help with the box scores -- that was my entre into the sports department. <br /><br />"And he was the lead sports writer and columnist. He never wanted to be the sports editor. He didn't want to do all that administration and time sheets. He just wanted to write. <br /><br />"I started there in 1961, and he was already there for two years when I got there. I think he was there in 1959, roughly speaking. <br /><br />"Tom did take me to that movie (The Hustler), and he loved it. And after we went to the movie, we went to the press club. They had a pool table at the press club, and a lot of us worked at night. If you didn't want to go to a bar, or to dinner, there was the press club. It was a very active place. <br />And when we walked in, everybody was all excited about playing pool because the movie was in town. Most of the writers had seen the movie. <br /><br />"It was a big deal at the time. Everywhere, people had seen that movie. <br /><br />"He was born in 1925, so he would have been 38 or something like that, and I was 21 years old. He was a curmudgeon. He was five foot eleven. He was sort of pudgy at the time. He wore his hair like Bob Hope, but he was better looking than Bob Hope. He parted his hair too high, and he had slicked back hair. <br /><br />"Tom knew right away, at the (Johnston City) tournament -- he knew it was a great story, because the movie was such a phenomenon. And here was this guy, Minnesota Fats, who had never been written about. All these guys had nicknames. ... Here was this culture unfolding in front of Tom. It was real. He didn't have to write fiction. You know: there was Daddy Warbucks, and Minnesota Fats, and Danny Jones, who was Handsome Dan, and there was the Tuscaloosa Squirrel, and Wienie Beanie. He knew he had a story by the tail. <br /><br />"That first night he took all the girls over -- I don't think we got back until four in the morning. We had to stay awake, and keep Tom entertained, so he could drive us home. He was a hilarious guy. He could be a stand-up comedian. <br /><br />"I think the other girls went a second time, but by the third time, I was the only one willing to go. I can't remember if that was that fascinated me with Tom. ... I think I loved the characters and the scene as much as he did. It was after that trip, when we went by ourselves, that he decided to write a book."R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-66329630187182418922007-08-18T23:14:00.000-07:002007-08-18T23:15:17.179-07:00Karen Fox remembers Minnesota Fats, and EvelynTom Fox, the late husband of Karen Fox, co-wrote the Bank Shot and other Great Robberies, the autobiography of Minnesota Fats. Much of that work was based on interviews with Fats' wife, Evelyn. Karen remembers the difficult interviews with Fats leading up to the writing of that book, which was published in 1967.<br /><br />"They (Fats and Evelyn) were an odd couple. They had a great affection for each other, and took very good care of each other in a crazy kind of way. She was very consistent. Pool players, when they were making a lot of money, when the hustling was good, buy expensive cars and shoes. But even when times were bad, she (still) had an incredible wardrobe.<br /><br />When Tom wrote the book, I spent a lot of time with Evelyn. Fats would get to the point -- you know, he was such an ego maniac -- where it was hard to fill in the glue between the gems. We had just moved to Philadelphia. I had to take a bus to Dowell, Illinois to finish up the research with Evelyn. He (Fats) would go into rages. They were funny -- he would have these ego attacks. And so Evelyn had to fill in the blanks, so Tom could get the book out.<br /><br />It was a freak fluke that the book was ever sold. It happened on a street in New York. I remember how it went down: Tom got out of a taxi and just ran into somebody and they got to talking about pool. It was Roy Chanell, president of World Publishing, and he was a pool nut. And so the book was sold (from that conversation). He (Tom) had to provide and outline, and then it was a done deal."R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-45446331782467621492007-08-18T23:13:00.000-07:002007-08-18T23:14:08.355-07:00Karen Fox remembers the first trip to Johnston CityKaren Fox, widow of Tom Fox, attended the first Johnston City tournaments with her writer-husband in 1961. Both Karen and Tom worked at the Evansville Courier and Press, a newspaper published from the hometown of backroom legend Hubert "Daddy Warbucks" Cokes. Tom, a sports writer, had received a tip that there might be a colorful feature story to be had at the Johnston City tournament.<br /><br />So he drove down with Karen and some other friends. Their courtship was borne from those long drives. What follows is a partial transcript of various interview with Karen Fox, the first conducted in August, of 2000.<br /><br />"Tom was a sports writer at the time, and he was a very good newsman, as well as being a good sports writer. Somebody called at the sports desk at the Evansville Sunday Courier and Press, and told him that this great Evansville Indiana pool player, Hubert Cokes, an oilman, was going to be participating in the tournament. They said that Tom, with his love for characters, should go to Johnston city, and watch Cokes play.<br /><br />And this guy, on the phone, said that Cokes was a heavy money-player.<br /><br /><br />He and I had just started dating, and we had just seen The Hustler a couple of weeks before he got that call. He could not believe that out in the middle of nowhere, in Southern Illinois, were all these incredible pool players. They had this really good tournament room, with good acoustics, and bleachers, in the back. There was a concrete block room where, after the tournament was over, there were heavy-duty gambling. And Tom knew it was a national story.<br /><br /><br />We got to see it first hand. You know, television has a way of sterilizing stuff like that. ... But what we saw was pure, and raw, and real. There was a moment in time, a freeze frame, that we had that privilege to see. Those guys were incredible characters.<br /><br />Oh my god, it was awesome. When tom started going over there, he took a bunch of us the 90 miles from Evansville. It was a drive. I worked at the paper too. We had just met. And he e took a whole load of us over there. He had a station wagon. It was so far, that (eventually ) everybody else stopped going, but I loved it.''R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8645118506377022455.post-56822665326196329402007-08-18T23:12:00.001-07:002007-08-18T23:12:53.217-07:00Karen Fox remembers her late husband Tom Fox, the man who "discovered" Minnesota Fats and Johnston CityKaren married Tom Fox in 1964, and stayed with him until his death in 1989. Tom worked in the sports department of the Evansville Courier and Press; she worked on the women's page. The following is from an interview in 2004. <br /><br />``During basketball season, I did color stories -- mostly high school sports -- of Evansville college games. The sports editors recruited a lot of us young women to help with the box scores -- that was my entre into the sports department. <br /><br />"And he was the lead sports writer and columnist. He never wanted to be the sports editor. He didn't want to do all that administration and time sheets. He just wanted to write. <br /><br />"I started there in 1961, and he was already there for two years when I got there. I think he was there in 1959, roughly speaking. <br /><br />"Tom did take me to that movie (The Hustler), and he loved it. And after we went to the movie, we went to the press club. They had a pool table at the press club, and a lot of us worked at night. If you didn't want to go to a bar, or to dinner, there was the press club. It was a very active place. <br />And when we walked in, everybody was all excited about playing pool because the movie was in town. Most of the writers had seen the movie. <br /><br />"It was a big deal at the time. Everywhere, people had seen that movie. <br /><br />"He was born in 1925, so he would have been 38 or something like that, and I was 21 years old. He was a curmudgeon. He was five foot eleven. He was sort of pudgy at the time. He wore his hair like Bob Hope, but he was better looking than Bob Hope. He parted his hair too high, and he had slicked back hair. <br /><br />"Tom knew right away, at the (Johnston City) tournament -- he knew it was a great story, because the movie was such a phenomenon. And here was this guy, Minnesota Fats, who had never been written about. All these guys had nicknames. ... Here was this culture unfolding in front of Tom. It was real. He didn't have to write fiction. You know: there was Daddy Warbucks, and Minnesota Fats, and Danny Jones, who was Handsome Dan, and there was the Tuscaloosa Squirrel, and Wienie Beanie. He knew he had a story by the tail. <br /><br />"That first night he took all the girls over -- I don't think we got back until four in the morning. We had to stay awake, and keep Tom entertained, so he could drive us home. He was a hilarious guy. He could be a stand-up comedian. <br /><br />"I think the other girls went a second time, but by the third time, I was the only one willing to go. I can't remember if that was that fascinated me with Tom. ... I think I loved the characters and the scene as much as he did. It was after that trip, when we went by ourselves, that he decided to write a book."R.A. Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18203284748098418423noreply@blogger.com0