Yank Adams
Encyclopedia
Frank B. Adams, commonly known as Yank Adams, was a professional carom billiards player specializing in finger billiards, in which a player manipulates the balls with his or her hands directly, instead of with an implement such as a cue stick
, often by twisting the ball between the thumb and the middle finger. Adams, who was sometimes billed as the "Digital Billiard Wonder", has been lauded as the "greatest of all digit billiards players" and the "champion digital billiardist of the World." George F. Slosson, a top billiards player of Adams' era, named him the "greatest exhibition player who ever lived." His exhibitions would draw standing room only crowds of 1,000 or more spectators even in small venues.
Beginning with an aptitude for bowling, Adams picked up some billiard balls one day at the age of 25 and began to "bowl" on the table. Largely self-taught, Adams thereafter amassed a large repertoire of finger billiards shot. He procured a manager and began giving performances, first at a set engagement in New York City, and later traveling extensively giving exhibitions and taking on challengers in nearly every city in the United States and many in Europe. During his travels, Adams performed before the Vanderbilts
and the Goulds
, three U.S. Presidents
, as well as Prince of Wales
in London
and the Comte de Paris in Paris
. One of the largest matches ever played at any form of billiards took place at Manhattan's Gilmore's Gardens in 1878 between Adams, playing with his fingers, and the then reigning cue champion of the world, William Sexton, playing with a cue, where Adams ultimately prevailed over the three-day competition in the game of straight rail
.
, which led to his being nicknamed Yank
later in life. From a young age, he exhibited the substantial hand strength required for finger billiards. When he was not yet a year old his grip could hurt his mother, who would give him chunks of bread to squeeze instead of her. Adams was large for his age and in 1863, at 14 years old, he was able to disguise his youth in order to join the Eighteenth Connecticut Volunteers. He served with them for three years, fighting for the Union
in the American Civil War
. After being discharged, Adams worked as a carpenter
from 1872 to 1875. Thereafter he became a traveling salesman for the American Sterling-Silver Company and traveled back and forth across the United States.
, often giving informal exhibitions of bowling tricks such as "cocked hat", "back frame", and letting the head pin remain standing. In a 1913 interview Adams relfected that "[i]n those days we rolled what was termed 'skew ball', similar to the put on a cue ball in Billiards."
When Adams was 25 he accepted a position as a traveling salesman for the Derby Silver Company in New York
. While waiting for customers one day in a Poughkeepsie hotel, he strolled into a billiard room, took half a dozen pool balls over to a billiard table, and commenced
to "bowl". The attention of everyone in the place was attracted by the manner in which Adams made the ball travel. One man asked the privilege of placing the balls in a certain position for Adams to bowl at and Adams made the shot easily. This started Adams on his career as a finger billiard expert. In the next town he traveled to, he hired a table and performed the same stunts with the balls, and added a few new shots. For three months after that Adams did not miss a single day practicing various shots, and some of the shots developed during that time became part of his regular exhibition repertoire.
Returning to New York, Adams met with Maurice Daly, then the "dean of billiards". After listening to Adams' story, Daly said that he was not aware that any startling shots could be accomplished using only the hands. Offering Adams a set of four balls, Daly sat down to see just what he could do. After a dozen shots, Daly became greatly interested, often asking Adams to repeat shots. At the end of the performance, Daly told Adams that if he ever entertained any idea of entering the billiards field he would give him an engagement at his room.
and Sexton gave Adams an engagement at Miner's Bowery Theater at $115 a week. Adams sought to secure a manager as was typical of billiards professionals of the time; he was taken on by Billy O'Brien, a well known sports authority and one-time pugilist who managed Dominick McCaffrey
later in his career. During his tenure as manager, O'Brien organized an exhibition tour of the United States for Adams. Three months into the tour, Adams reached Chicago
, where he played a three week engagement for Billy Emmett at $500 a week. Leaving the stage, Adams opened at O'Connor's billiard room, at Fourteenth Street and Fourth Avenue, where he played nightly for a solid year. Adams then resumed traveling, giving exhibitions in nearly every city in the United States and a large number of cities in Europe.
In 1868 Adams appeared before the Prince of Wales
in London
and the Comte de Paris in Paris
. While in London John Roberts, Jr.
offered Adams $300 per week for one year to play afternoon and evening at his Argyle Rooms. After playing for the Comte de Paris, the Frenchmen wanted Adams to state his figures for an indefinite period. Adams also played for three U.S. Presidents
and while in New York was paid $100 per night by the Vanderbilts
and Goulds
. Bullocks Billiard Guide said of Adams that he had made more than $70,000 for exhibition alone over 7 years, which was more than the balance of all other listed billiardists combined. Though champion players with cues sometimes dabbled in finger billiards, it was said even of such greats as Jacob Schaefer, George Slosson and Eugene Carter that "their work, compared with that of the Finger Wonder, is like a novice playing an expert."
wrote:
took place between William Sexton (then cue champion of the world) and Yank Adams at Manhattan's Gilmore's Gardens (the predecessor venue of Madison Square Garden
) that pitted Adams' finger billiards against Sexton using his for a purse of $500. The house was one of the largest
that had ever witnessed a billiard game. The terms were that each day of the match Adams was required to score 2,000 points, while Sexton needed only 1,000.
On the first day of the match Adams ran 1,110 points employing finger billiards. Despite Adams' impressive opening performance, by the third and last day of the match Sexton was far in the lead. In Dewey-Defeats-Truman
-style, many newspapers reported that Sexton won the tourney, as their reporters left the tournament before it was over at a time when Sexton had a seemingly indomitable lead. The New York Times
, for example, reported that Sexton won the match, though they leavened the result by reporting that despite the prize fund, it was a "friendly match", geared toward exhibition, and that "Adams could undoubtedly have run the game out on three occasions, but preferred to make 'display' shots in place of his usual "nurse" play, against which a cue player stands no chance whatever." What actually occurred was that with Sexton needing only seven points to sew up the championship, Adams stepped to the table and , making 1,181 points in a row for the win.
where top players, Marice Daly, Albert Garnier, Eugene Carter, A. P. Rudolphe, Randolph Heiser, William Sexton, George F. Slosson and "the Wizard", Jacob Schaefer, Sr. battled for honors at the newly introduced carom billiards discipline called the champion's game (an intermediary game between straight rail and balkine
).
In 1889 Adams broke the then standing world record run for successive straight rail points in a match with champion player Jacob Schaefer, Sr., scoring 4,962 in a row, which was 2,400 points more than any prior competition high run, albeit, with his fingers rather than with a cue. Adams stated in an interview in his later years that his personal high run was 6,900 consecutive straight rail counts.
Echoing the offers he had received in 1868 to stay for an extended exhibition period in Paris and London, in 1890 Adams returned to Paris after signing a contract with Eugene Carter to play at his billiard academy for thirteen weeks at 1,000 franc
s (approximately $200) per week, after which he went in London, under the management of M. Farini, to play at the room of John Roberts, Jr. On a previous trip to London in 1887, Roberts offered Adams £
60 a week for six months to give exhibitions, but Adams demurred citing a need to superintend his sporting journal.
Adams was editor and proprietor of The Chicago Sporting Journal, as well as general manager of the New York Sporting and Theatrical Journal. With his association to the sporting journals, Adams was known to be an intermediary for the issuance of challenge matches, such as boxing bouts and to hold the winning stake and distribute the winnings upon the event's conclusion. Adams also owned a number of different billiard parlors during his lifetime including one in Chicago named the White Elephant another in Chicago called the Academy Billiard Hall, and a third above O'Connor Brothers on Union Square
at 60 East 14th Street in New York City. Adams' business cards, at least during 1877, said simply "Yank Adams, champion finger billiardist of the world. Residence immaterial."
In 1923, when Adams was 76, the following newspaper story appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune
, telling of his whereabouts:
Adams would sometimes take on various types of challenge matches at his performances. For example, at an exhibition held in Omaha Nebraska on November 20, 1889, Adams was pitted against twenty of the best players in the city, manipulating the "ivories" with his fingers, while his opponents used cues and were given a equivalent to a 1,000 point lead.
Adams performed about 80 shots per exhibition and had a large repertoire of practiced shots—more than 500, affording him the luxury to not repeat a single shot when playing at an exhibition venue for a week's time. The abundance of shots in his bag was unusual, described by one sports writer as "more extensive than the entire billiard fraternity put together". The following is a description of shots appearing in an 1891 newspaper article on Adams, highlighted as "among his difficult feats":
The public flocked to Adams' exhibitions and often the size of a pool room where he was performing could barely contain the crowd. When Adams performed in Rochester, New York
in 1892 for example, the local paper reported that "[n]o man in these broad acres can draw the crowd "Yank" Adams does when an exhibition with the ivories is the card. Last night's crowd was banked up, against the walls, twenty deep in someplaces and many witnessed the exhibition from the table tops and window ledges."
Cue stick
A cue stick , is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the...
, often by twisting the ball between the thumb and the middle finger. Adams, who was sometimes billed as the "Digital Billiard Wonder", has been lauded as the "greatest of all digit billiards players" and the "champion digital billiardist of the World." George F. Slosson, a top billiards player of Adams' era, named him the "greatest exhibition player who ever lived." His exhibitions would draw standing room only crowds of 1,000 or more spectators even in small venues.
Beginning with an aptitude for bowling, Adams picked up some billiard balls one day at the age of 25 and began to "bowl" on the table. Largely self-taught, Adams thereafter amassed a large repertoire of finger billiards shot. He procured a manager and began giving performances, first at a set engagement in New York City, and later traveling extensively giving exhibitions and taking on challengers in nearly every city in the United States and many in Europe. During his travels, Adams performed before the Vanderbilts
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
and the Goulds
Jay Gould
Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time...
, three U.S. Presidents
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, as well as Prince of Wales
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and the Comte de Paris in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. One of the largest matches ever played at any form of billiards took place at Manhattan's Gilmore's Gardens in 1878 between Adams, playing with his fingers, and the then reigning cue champion of the world, William Sexton, playing with a cue, where Adams ultimately prevailed over the three-day competition in the game of straight rail
Balkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
.
Early life
Adams was raised in Norwich, ConnecticutNorwich, Connecticut
Regular steamship service between New York and Boston helped Norwich to prosper as a shipping center through the early part of the 20th century. During the Civil War, Norwich once again rallied and saw the growth of its textile, armaments, and specialty item manufacturing...
, which led to his being nicknamed Yank
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
later in life. From a young age, he exhibited the substantial hand strength required for finger billiards. When he was not yet a year old his grip could hurt his mother, who would give him chunks of bread to squeeze instead of her. Adams was large for his age and in 1863, at 14 years old, he was able to disguise his youth in order to join the Eighteenth Connecticut Volunteers. He served with them for three years, fighting for the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. After being discharged, Adams worked as a carpenter
Carpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
from 1872 to 1875. Thereafter he became a traveling salesman for the American Sterling-Silver Company and traveled back and forth across the United States.
Beginnings in billiards
Adams finger billiards and exhibition work had its germination in his early bowling interest. At 17, Adams was a very adept bowlerBowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
, often giving informal exhibitions of bowling tricks such as "cocked hat", "back frame", and letting the head pin remain standing. In a 1913 interview Adams relfected that "[i]n those days we rolled what was termed 'skew ball', similar to the put on a cue ball in Billiards."
When Adams was 25 he accepted a position as a traveling salesman for the Derby Silver Company in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. While waiting for customers one day in a Poughkeepsie hotel, he strolled into a billiard room, took half a dozen pool balls over to a billiard table, and commenced
to "bowl". The attention of everyone in the place was attracted by the manner in which Adams made the ball travel. One man asked the privilege of placing the balls in a certain position for Adams to bowl at and Adams made the shot easily. This started Adams on his career as a finger billiard expert. In the next town he traveled to, he hired a table and performed the same stunts with the balls, and added a few new shots. For three months after that Adams did not miss a single day practicing various shots, and some of the shots developed during that time became part of his regular exhibition repertoire.
Returning to New York, Adams met with Maurice Daly, then the "dean of billiards". After listening to Adams' story, Daly said that he was not aware that any startling shots could be accomplished using only the hands. Offering Adams a set of four balls, Daly sat down to see just what he could do. After a dozen shots, Daly became greatly interested, often asking Adams to repeat shots. At the end of the performance, Daly told Adams that if he ever entertained any idea of entering the billiards field he would give him an engagement at his room.
International success
The billiard germ soon began to work on Adams and he gave up his job with the silver company. Adams went to Sexton's billiard parlor in the BoweryBowery
Bowery may refer to:Streets:* The Bowery, a thoroughfare in Manhattan, New York City* Bowery Street is a street on Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y.In popular culture:* Bowery Amphitheatre, a building on the Bowery in New York City...
and Sexton gave Adams an engagement at Miner's Bowery Theater at $115 a week. Adams sought to secure a manager as was typical of billiards professionals of the time; he was taken on by Billy O'Brien, a well known sports authority and one-time pugilist who managed Dominick McCaffrey
Dominick McCaffrey
Dominick McCaffrey was an Irish-American boxer.McCaffrey was a popular boxer during his time, often noted for fighting much larger heavyweights. In 1885 he lost the Heavyweight Championship to John L. Sullivan...
later in his career. During his tenure as manager, O'Brien organized an exhibition tour of the United States for Adams. Three months into the tour, Adams reached Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where he played a three week engagement for Billy Emmett at $500 a week. Leaving the stage, Adams opened at O'Connor's billiard room, at Fourteenth Street and Fourth Avenue, where he played nightly for a solid year. Adams then resumed traveling, giving exhibitions in nearly every city in the United States and a large number of cities in Europe.
In 1868 Adams appeared before the Prince of Wales
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and the Comte de Paris in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. While in London John Roberts, Jr.
John Roberts, Jr. (billiards player)
John Roberts, Jr. was a dominant professional player of English billiards. He was also a notable manufacturer of billiards cues and tables, and promoter of the sport.-Early years:...
offered Adams $300 per week for one year to play afternoon and evening at his Argyle Rooms. After playing for the Comte de Paris, the Frenchmen wanted Adams to state his figures for an indefinite period. Adams also played for three U.S. Presidents
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and while in New York was paid $100 per night by the Vanderbilts
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
and Goulds
Jay Gould
Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time...
. Bullocks Billiard Guide said of Adams that he had made more than $70,000 for exhibition alone over 7 years, which was more than the balance of all other listed billiardists combined. Though champion players with cues sometimes dabbled in finger billiards, it was said even of such greats as Jacob Schaefer, George Slosson and Eugene Carter that "their work, compared with that of the Finger Wonder, is like a novice playing an expert."
Public exhibitions
Adams' first major public exhibition in New York was held on January 31, 1878 at the Union Square Billiard Rooms before a large audience, where he continued to perform nightly for a week. Reporting on the first night of the event, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote:
The intricacy of the various shots he played, as well as the marvelous accuracy with which they were executed, frequently roused the spectators to an unusual pitch of enthusiasm.... Many of Adams' shots are entirely new, never having been attempted before by any billiards expert. Among them may be mentioned the wonderful "bottle" shot with which last evening's exhibition was brought to a close. Two soda-water bottles were placed at the head of the left-hand rail, about a foot apart, a red ball being placed in the mouth of each bottle. A white ball was next placed against the right-hand rail, directly opposite the lower bottle. Everything being in readiness, Adams then took the remaining white ball in his hand, and masseing upon the ball in the mouth of the upper bottle, jumped his ball to the ball in the mouth of the other bottle, whence, falling upon the table it was carried by a reverse "English" to the middle of the top rail, whence it glided with unerring accuracy to the right-hand rail and caromed upon the first-mentioned white ball, its successful execution being greeted with great applause.
Competitive play and rivalries
M. Adrian Izar
New Yorkers had previously been treated to finger billiards exhibition by French master M. Adrien Izar, who had astonished spectators with his finger billiards performance in an exhibition held on September 20, 1875. The game was little known in the United States prior to that display, and Izar was considered the game's champion player, at least in France and England. The night before the 1878 exhibition, Adams received a telegram from Izar challenging Adams to play for the championship and naming Chicago as the site for contest. Adams replied that he was unwilling to leave New York at that time, but that he would pay Izar's expenses to travel to New York. Adams later issued the following statement to newspapers:I have never intended to play a public match in my line, having never arrogated to myself a superiority above other hand billiard players, although I have deemed myself the equal of any one living in my line, not excepting Mons. Izar, by whom continually letters are written, whose contents have for their purpose a derogation of my skill. That this may be checked, and summarily, I would state that I am willing to play Mons. Izar a match game for $500 a side, in New York City, Boston or Chicago, on a 5x10 table, full size balls and Collender cushion; the championship and gate money to be awarded the player showing the greatest variety of shots in connection with accuracy, and in all giving the most interesting exhibition of finger billiards.
William Sexton
Starting on March 15, 1878, a billiards match spread over three days at the game of straight railBalkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
took place between William Sexton (then cue champion of the world) and Yank Adams at Manhattan's Gilmore's Gardens (the predecessor venue of Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
) that pitted Adams' finger billiards against Sexton using his for a purse of $500. The house was one of the largest
that had ever witnessed a billiard game. The terms were that each day of the match Adams was required to score 2,000 points, while Sexton needed only 1,000.
On the first day of the match Adams ran 1,110 points employing finger billiards. Despite Adams' impressive opening performance, by the third and last day of the match Sexton was far in the lead. In Dewey-Defeats-Truman
Dewey Defeats Truman
"Dewey Defeats Truman" was a famously inaccurate banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman beat Republican challenger and Governor of New York Thomas E...
-style, many newspapers reported that Sexton won the tourney, as their reporters left the tournament before it was over at a time when Sexton had a seemingly indomitable lead. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, for example, reported that Sexton won the match, though they leavened the result by reporting that despite the prize fund, it was a "friendly match", geared toward exhibition, and that "Adams could undoubtedly have run the game out on three occasions, but preferred to make 'display' shots in place of his usual "nurse" play, against which a cue player stands no chance whatever." What actually occurred was that with Sexton needing only seven points to sew up the championship, Adams stepped to the table and , making 1,181 points in a row for the win.
Louis Shaw
Adams' chief professional rivalry in later years was with Louis Shaw. In 1891 Adams and Shaw had a disagreement over the format of the finger billiards championship to be contested between them that year. Adams wanted the match to be played for a $500 stake, while Shaw wanted the match to be for charity, with the receipts to go to the firemen's fund.Other accomplishments
In 1879 Adams was chosen as official referee for the championship Collender Billiard Tournament held at Tammany HallTammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
where top players, Marice Daly, Albert Garnier, Eugene Carter, A. P. Rudolphe, Randolph Heiser, William Sexton, George F. Slosson and "the Wizard", Jacob Schaefer, Sr. battled for honors at the newly introduced carom billiards discipline called the champion's game (an intermediary game between straight rail and balkine
Balkline and straight rail
Balkline is the overarching title of a large array of carom billiards games generally played with two and a third, red , on a -covered, 5 foot × 10 foot, less table that is divided by on the cloth into marked regions called...
).
In 1889 Adams broke the then standing world record run for successive straight rail points in a match with champion player Jacob Schaefer, Sr., scoring 4,962 in a row, which was 2,400 points more than any prior competition high run, albeit, with his fingers rather than with a cue. Adams stated in an interview in his later years that his personal high run was 6,900 consecutive straight rail counts.
Echoing the offers he had received in 1868 to stay for an extended exhibition period in Paris and London, in 1890 Adams returned to Paris after signing a contract with Eugene Carter to play at his billiard academy for thirteen weeks at 1,000 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s (approximately $200) per week, after which he went in London, under the management of M. Farini, to play at the room of John Roberts, Jr. On a previous trip to London in 1887, Roberts offered Adams £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
60 a week for six months to give exhibitions, but Adams demurred citing a need to superintend his sporting journal.
Adams was editor and proprietor of The Chicago Sporting Journal, as well as general manager of the New York Sporting and Theatrical Journal. With his association to the sporting journals, Adams was known to be an intermediary for the issuance of challenge matches, such as boxing bouts and to hold the winning stake and distribute the winnings upon the event's conclusion. Adams also owned a number of different billiard parlors during his lifetime including one in Chicago named the White Elephant another in Chicago called the Academy Billiard Hall, and a third above O'Connor Brothers on Union Square
Union Square (New York City)
Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...
at 60 East 14th Street in New York City. Adams' business cards, at least during 1877, said simply "Yank Adams, champion finger billiardist of the world. Residence immaterial."
Later life
Adams continued to give exhibitions and was still able to perform well into his later years. For example, the New Rochelle Pioneer newspaper reported that Adams gave an exhibition on December 21, 1915 (at 68 years of age), at Chamberlain's Derby Billiard Academy in New Rochelle, New York, and that he was "at his best and made some exceptionally brilliant shots in the presence of 300 lovers of the game. While at the table he kept up a continuous humorous monologue to the great pleasure of his audience." Almost four years later in 1919 (at age 71), Adams was reported to have given an exhibition before a large audience at Lawler Brothers Billiard Academy of Brooklyn.In 1923, when Adams was 76, the following newspaper story appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the U.S. city of Salt Lake City. It is distributed by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the Deseret News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based MediaNews Group....
, telling of his whereabouts:
Perhaps you old fellows, too, thought Yank had passed on, but he turned up in New York the other day and is now spending his last days in a Bronx flat. There was a time when Yank Adams was known in every billiard room in America. He was as much at home in Eddie Graney's room at San Francisco as at Tom Foley's in Chicago of Maurice Daly's in New York, and he knew all the billiard players and big and little room keepers from coast to coast. When the history of billiards is written and the names of Willie Hoppe, old and young Jake Schaefer and Welker Cochran are included with others of the great exponents of the indoor sport, there will be a distinct division for one man—the man who did the impossible, who could make the ivories travel the wrong way, or, in the language of the billiard realm, "make 'em talk all languages." That man is Frank B. Adams, known the world over as "Yank" Adams, at one time and even now the world's only finger billiardist who can make all the apparently impossible shots on the table without the aid of a cue. Adams is 76 years old, and after fifty years of exhibitions all over the world has retired from active work to live in the Bronx and conduct a billiard academy of his own at Burnside and Creston avenues in New York with his business manager for the last ten years, Samuel Polakoff. Yank now lives at 635 West 136th street In New York. When I told Tom Foley, the daddy of all the roommkeepers, that Yank Adams was back in the business he laughed and said: "I thought Yank had cashed in. But he's like all those billiard players. They never die."
Style of play
Adams played only with his fingers, disdaining the cue stick entirely. He was known not just for his skill at finger billiards, but for the quickness of his play. In exhibitions it was sometimes advertised that Adams would attempt to make 100 shots in 100 seconds. He would always begin by "feeling out" the cushions on the table, as he met different cushions almost nightly is his travels, some and some .Adams would sometimes take on various types of challenge matches at his performances. For example, at an exhibition held in Omaha Nebraska on November 20, 1889, Adams was pitted against twenty of the best players in the city, manipulating the "ivories" with his fingers, while his opponents used cues and were given a equivalent to a 1,000 point lead.
Adams performed about 80 shots per exhibition and had a large repertoire of practiced shots—more than 500, affording him the luxury to not repeat a single shot when playing at an exhibition venue for a week's time. The abundance of shots in his bag was unusual, described by one sports writer as "more extensive than the entire billiard fraternity put together". The following is a description of shots appearing in an 1891 newspaper article on Adams, highlighted as "among his difficult feats":
Two quart wine bottles are placed at the short end of the table, three feet apart; a ball is placed on the top of each bottle, and a third ball, six feet from the bottles in the opposite corner. Adams makes the hand ball jump from bottle to bottle then to take an English in space, counting on the third bail, a double shot.In another newspaper piece appearing in the St. Paul Daily Globe, the reporter summed up the events of an April 26, 1888 Adams exhibition as follows:Fifteen balls are placed in a line, three inches apart. On the last ball is placed a piece of chalk, while two feet from the other end, at a square angle, is placed a single ball. Yank drops the hand ball with a Massé twist, which, after hitting the single ball, describes a semi-circle, taken the cushion first, then makes a carrom on the fifteen balls, but is played with such a delicate calculation as barely to reach the last ball; in fact, freezes against it so gently as not to dislodge the chalk previously placed thereon.
A derby hat is placed on the table, under which is a ball. One foot from the hat are two balls a foot apart, which he carroms on, the hand ball continues striking the rim of the hat, forces it up, and goes under making the stroke on the third ball, then returns from under the hat when it rocks the second time.
He also stand at the head of the table, throwing the balls with a hundred-yard force but has them stop eight feet away in such a position as to spell his name.
The great finger billiard exhibition came off last night at the Standard billiard hall to a packed house, and those who saw Yank Adams handle the spheres were more than delighted.... Shot after shot were made in lightning rapidity, spotting the ball, running the whole length of the rail, crossing over, with two cushions and counting, going under hats and in between them, cutting the letter S and making the carom, jump shots, masses and hundreds of others too complicated to put in type. Mr. A.M. Doherty played a game with the exhibitor, and at twenty-eight points left the balls in a scattered position, which were gathered at one shot by Mr. Adams, who made fifty shots in sixty seconds. What seemed his most difficult shot was that of placing fifteen balls in a line, and a piece of chalk on the last ball. The hand ball was then dropped a distance of two feet, described a semi-circle, making a carom on all of the balls and freezing against the last ball. Adams' finger shots discount Schaeffer, Slosson and J. Carter combined.
The public flocked to Adams' exhibitions and often the size of a pool room where he was performing could barely contain the crowd. When Adams performed in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
in 1892 for example, the local paper reported that "[n]o man in these broad acres can draw the crowd "Yank" Adams does when an exhibition with the ivories is the card. Last night's crowd was banked up, against the walls, twenty deep in someplaces and many witnessed the exhibition from the table tops and window ledges."