Neither had I.There were but few professional sports outside of the gamblers, and even these few led a most precarious existence.
I was quite an expert at billiards long before I was ever heard of as a ball player.

There was a billiard table in the old Anson House and it was upon that that I practiced when I was scarcely large enough to handle a cue.

It was rather a primitive piece of furniture, but it answered the purpose for which it had been designed.

It was one of the old six pocket affairs, with a bass-wood bed instead of slate, and the balls sometimes went wabbling over it very much the same fashion as eggs would roll if pushed about on a kitchen table with a broomstick.

In spite of having to use such poor tools I soon became quite proficient at the game and many a poor drummer was taken into camp by the long, gawky country lad at Marshalltown, whose backers were always looking about for a chance to make some easy money.
Next to base-ball, billiards was at that time my favorite sport and there was not an hour in the day that I was not willing to leave anything that I might be engaged upon to take a hand in either one of these games.
When it came to weeding a garden or hoeing a field of corn I was not to be relied upon, but at laying out a ball, ground I was a whole team.