There is no more fascinating game in existence at the present day than
billiards, and no game that is more popular with gentlemen, and for the
reason that it can be played indoors and in all kinds of weather and
that it does not require the frame of an athlete nor the training of one
1111 to play it successfully, though it may be set down as a fact that
the experts at billiards are few and far between, for the reason that it
takes not only natural ability and constant practice to be even a
moderately successful billiardist, the real geniuses at the game being
born and not made. Since the days of my early boyhood billiards has
divided my attentions with base-ball, and what little skill I have
attained at the game is due as much to good habits and constant practice
as is the success that I achieved on the ball field.
The game itself has undergone many and frequent changes since I first
began to play in the old hotel at Marshalltown, and with tools of such a
primitive character that they would be laughed at in a modern billiard
resort. The four-ball game and the old-fashioned six-pocket table have
both been relegated into the shadows of obscurity, and the new standard
5x10 table, without pockets, that is a model of the builder's art, has
taken the place of the one and three-ball games of various styles, from
straight rail to three-cushion caroms of the other. Each and every game
that has been played has been an improvement on the style of game that
preceded it and each and every style of game has had its own special
votaries, some players excelling at one style of billiards and some at
another, the players who excelled at all being few and far between.
It has been my good fortune to enjoy the acquaintance and friendship of
nearly all of the billiard players who have become famous in the annals
of the game since I first began ball playing for a livelihood in
Rockford, among them being Frank C. Ives, the "Young Napoleon of
Billiards," who, like myself, was a ball player before he ever became
known as a knight of the cue, and whose early death was so greatly
regretted by every lover of the game, both at home and abroad; Jacob
Schaefer, "the Wizard of the Cue," who, as a ball-to-ball player, ranks
at the head of the profession and who plays any and every game that can
be played upon a billiard table with a skill that is akin to genius;
George F. Slosson, the "Student," whose persistent application and
studious habits have combined to make him one of the greatest prayers of
his day and generation; Eugene Carter, "You-know-me," whose stalwart
form and ready tongue are as well known in the majority of the European
capitals as in the larger cities of our country; Thomas J. Gallagher,
"Gray Tom," who is a hard man for any of the second-class experts to
tackle; Edward McLaughlin, the little gentleman who first came into
prominence at Philadelphia; Frank Maggioli, who has grown gray in the
service of billiards, but who still retains his title of Champion of the
South; Billy Catton, "the Rock Island Wonder," George Sutton, and many
others, with the most of whom I have crossed cues either for money or in
a friendly way at some time or other.
The first expert of any note that I ever met over a billiard table was
Eugene Kimball, of Rochester, N. Y., who, in 1871, was a member of the
Forest City Club of Cleveland, Ohio, and who at that time enjoyed a wide
reputation as a billiardist as well as a ball player. Kimball, it had
been generally conceded, played a strong game of billiards for those
days, and on one occasion when the Cleveland Club visited Rockford he
and I engaged in a game that attracted considerable attention both on
the part of the members of the two teams and of other outside friends
and admirers. There were no stakes up if I remember rightly, and I am
not just certain as to how the game resulted, though, unless I am very
much mistaken, it was in Kimball's favor, but not by such a large margin
of points as to make me ashamed of myself.
It was while a member of the Athletic Club of Philadelphia that I made
my debut as a billiardist in public. I played the game a great deal in
those days and had acquired quite a reputation for skill in handling the
cue among my fellow ball-players, nearly all of whom could play the game
after some fashion, there being seemingly quite an affinity between
base-ball and billiards. James Lentz of Trenton, N. J., at that time
enjoyed quite a reputation as a billiard expert in the land of sandflies
and mosquitoes, and he being in Philadelphia we came together at Nelms'
billiard room in a match game, 300 points up, at the old three-ball
style of billiards, for stakes of $100 a side, and I beat him by a score
of 300 to 252, no account of the averages or high runs being kept for
the reason, as I presume, that nobody thought them worth keeping, though
enough of the filthy lucre changed hands on the result to keep some of
my ball-playing friends in pocket money for some days.
That game was played on the fourth day of February, 1875, and it was not
until more than ten years afterwards that I again appeared in public as
a billiardist. Frank Parker, the ex-champion in the days of the old
four-ball game, now dead, was then a resident of Chicago, and his
friends thought so well of his abilities at the fourteen-inch balk line
game, which up to that time had never been played in public, that they
offered to match him against me for stakes of $250 a side, the game to
be 500 points up. After some talk back and forth this match was finally
made, and March 25th, 1885, we came together in Central Music Hall,
Chicago, before a fair-sized crowd, and I won by a score of 500 to 366,
averaging in the neighborhood of five, and astonishing both Parker and
his friends.
Slosson's billiard room on Monroe street, Chicago, was at that time and
for several years afterwards the scene of more billiard matches than any
similar resort in the United States, it being the headquarters of the
bookmaking fraternity as well as the billiardists from all sections of
the country, and it is more than probable that larger sums of money
changed hands over the result of the games that were played there during
the winter of 1885 and 1886 than changed hands in any other hall in the
country, the leading billiard rooms of Gotham not excepted. Among the
billiardists who were making Chicago their headquarters that winter were
Jacob Schaefer, George F. Slosson, Eugene Carter, Thomas F. Gallagher,
and William H. Catton, while among the bookmakers that made Slosson's
room their lounging place were such well-known knights of the chalk and
rubber as Dave Pulsifer, who afterwards owned the famous race horse,
Tenny; James H. Murphy, whose pacer, "Star Pointer," was in after years
the first horse in harness to beat the two-minute mark; William Riley,
who, under the sobriquet of "Silver Bill," is known from one end of the
country to the other; Charlie Stiles, for years the trusted lieutenant
of Bride and Armstrong, the Grand-Circuit pool sellers; George
'Wheelock, then hailing from St. Louis, but now known as one of the
nerviest of New York's betting brigade; Joe Ullman, who then as now was
a plunger; Johnny O'Neil, Frank Eckert, and many others, the place also
being a favorite resort for the horsemen.
Thomas J. Gallagher was that fall in good form and there were several
members of the book-making fraternity who stood ready to back him
whenever he said the word. I had taken a notion into my head that I
could beat him, nor was I alone in the opinion, for my friend, "Bart"
White, thought the same way. The result was that I agreed to play him a
match 300 points up at the fourteen-inch balk-line game for stakes of
$100 a side. We came together on the afternoon of November 23d at
Slosson's room, and Gallagher won by seventeen points, after a close and
exciting contest, the game standing at 300 to 283 in his favor.
Neither my friends nor myself were satisfied with the result of this
game, during the progress of which I had met with some hard luck, and
which I was certain that I might have played better, and as a result we
at once made another match at the same game to be played that night, the
stakes this time being increased to $150 a side. The game was played in
the presence of quite a crowd of billiard enthusiasts, and again
Gallagher won by 309 to 280, but even this defeat did not convince me
that he was a better player, and the result was still another match of
400 points up at the same game for stakes of $100 a side. This was
played the following evening, and for the third time Gallagher carried
off the honors, the totals showing 400 points for him as against only
183 for myself, and by this time I had come to the conclusion that he
was a "leetle bit" too speedy for me, and that he could look for
somebody else to pay his board-bills.
That same fall Wyman McCreary, of St. Louis, then as now recognized as
one of the strongest amateur players in the country, dropped into
Slosson's room, and the result was that I played him two matches at the
fourteen-inch balk-line game, each one being for $50 a side, winning
both, the score in the first one being 300 to 164, and in the second 300
to 194, my average in the last being 8 14-17, a performance that was at
that time something better than the ordinary. Even as far back as those
days there was a craze for angle games, and at three cushions Eugene
Carter was especially strong, he having a standing challenge to play any
man in the world at that style of billiards. He finally offered to play
me so points, his backer to wager $300 to $100 that he could beat me,
and this offer I accepted. The story of that game, as told in verse by a
Chicago newspaper man under the title of "A Match of Slosson's Room,"
was as follows:
It was some time in the winter, and, if I remember right,
There were snowflakes softly falling, through the darkness of the night,
When I wandered into Slosson's, where the lights were all ablaze,
In the hopes of seeing billiards, for I had the billiard craze.
'Round the table there had gathered all the sporting men in town,
Putting money up in handfuls; each was anxious to take down.
Some would yell out, "I'll take Anson at the odds of three to one,"
Then another'd cry, "I've got you," and the betting had begun.
'Twas a match game at three cushions, fifty points up, for a stake,
'Tween the base-ball man and Carter, and it wan't an even break,
For the odds were all in money and the playing even up,
But the horse that packs the top weight does not always win the cup.
Odds in money cut no figure from a betting point of view,
As I've found in life quite often, and, I doubt not, so have you.
If a man can't win at evens then he cannot win at all,
Be the odds they bet against him very large or very small.
Carter had the style and finish, but the Captain had the nerve
That in base-ball oft had helped him solve a pitcher's meanest curve!
And he seemed to know the angles just as well as "You-Know Me."
That he wasn't a beginner was as plain as plain could be.
'Round the table stood the bettors, looking on with eager eyes,
While first one and then another certain seemed to take the prize.
On the wire the clustered buttons sat like sparrows in a row,
'Neath the lights that gleamed and glistened while there outside fell
the snow.
Carter stood about and chattered just as Carter always will
(If you have a talking parrot you can never keep him still)
Anson only laughed and listened, saying as he chalked his cue:
"Frogs' legs measured up in inches don't tell what the frog can do,
"When it comes to jumping, Carter, and the best fish in the brook
Finds at last he's met his master when he grabs the angler's hook.
Talking does not win at billiards, nor at any other game,
When you come to count your buttons, then perhaps you'll think the same."
Went the buttons up together, one by one, upon the string,
Like two yachts that skim the waters, they were racing wing and wing.
Hushed was all the noisy clamor and the room was as still as death,
As they stood and watched the players chalk their cues with bated breath.
"Even up!" the marker shouted, and the buttons on the line
Counted up stood right together--each had stopped at forty-nine.
It was Anson's shot--a hard one--as the balls before him lay,
And he stopped to count the chances--then he chalked his cue to play.
"Call it off; I'll give you fifty," said George Wheelock, sitting near.
He had found the stakes for Carter and his voice was low and clear.
"Take your stakes down, Captain Anson, and take fifty 'plunks' of mine."
With a nod the Cap consented; Carter's backers bought the wine.
In that billiard-room of Slosson's, Carter argued half the night,
While the snowflakes drifted earthward like a mantle soft and white.
And he swore that he'd have won it if it wasn't for a miss
That he'd made up in the corner when he'd played to get a "kiss."
Now it may be that he would have, but I'm still inclined to believe
That he weakened o'er the billiards that he found up Anson's sleeve.
For I've noticed that the "sucker," or the chap you're thinking one,
Proves the "shark" that gets the money, "doing" 'stead of being "done."
The only match that I have engaged in since those days was one that I
played last fall with Conklin, a West Side amateur in Chicago, and was
at the eighteen-inch balk-line game, 400 points up for stakes of $50 a
side, 200 points to be played in my own room and 200 in Clark's resort.
The first night in my own room I obtained such a lead as to make the
result look like a foregone conclusion, but the next night he came back
at me like a cyclone and averaging over seven, a rattling good
performance at that style of billiards, he beat me out and did it in
such a handsome manner as to challenge my admiration and respect. Since
then he has beaten Morningstar, a Boston, Mass., professional in the
same easy fashion, and it would not be surprising were he yet to make
his mark in the billiard line.
I may say right here that I intend to devote more time to billiards in
the future than I have in the past, and that I am always willing to
match, provided that the game is a fair one, in which I have an even
chance, as, unlike some players that I could name, I am not always
looking for the best of it.