Yank Adams

Frank B. Adams (December 19, 1847 – December 29, 1929 ), commonly known as Yank Adams, was a professional carom billiards player who specialized in finger billiards, in which a player directly manipulates the balls with his or her hands, instead of using an implement such as a cue stick, often by twisting the ball between one's thumb and middle finger. Adams, who was sometimes billed as the "Digital Billiard Wonder", has been called the "greatest of all digit billiards players", George F. Slosson, a top billiards player of Adams' era, named him the "greatest exhibition player who ever lived."

Adams' career began when he found his aptitude for bowling translated to the playing of billiards. One day when he was 25 years old, he picked up some billiard balls and began to "bowl" on the table and soon discovered he could manipulate the balls with great accuracy in this manner. Largely self-taught, Adams thereafter amassed a large repertoire of finger billiards shots. He engaged a manager and began to give performances, his first was at an engagement in New York City. Later, Adams traveled extensively, giving exhibitions and taking on challengers in cities across the United States and some in Europe. During his travels, Adams performed before the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, three U.S. Presidents, the Prince of Wales in London, and the Comte de Paris in Paris. One of the largest matches ever played of any form of billiards took place at Manhattan's Gilmore's Gardens in 1878. Adams played using his fingers against William Sexton, the reigning cue champion of the world, who used a cue; Adams won the three-day competition in the game of straight rail.

Early life Adams was raised in Norwich, Connecticut, which led to him being nicknamed "Yank" later in life. From a young age, he exhibited the substantial hand strength required for finger billiards. After being discharged, Adams worked as a carpenter from 1872 to 1875, By the time he was 17, Adams was an adept bowler; he often gave informal exhibitions of bowling tricks such as "cocked hat", "back frame", and letting the head pin remain standing. who managed Dominick McCaffrey later in his career. O'Brien organized an exhibition tour of the United States for Adams. Prior to the performance, Adams and Sexton would play a billiard match for the audience. Adams' first major public exhibition in New York was held on January 31, 1878, at the Union Square Billiard Rooms before a large audience; he performed there nightly for a week. 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. at the game The match was between Adams and William Sexton, then the cue champion of the world, The match pitted Adams' finger billiards against Sexton using a cue, The audience was one of the largest that had ever witnessed a billiards game. In 1891 Adams and Shaw disagreed about the format of the finger billiards championship which they would both contest that year. Adams wanted the match to be played for a $500 stake, while Shaw wanted the receipts to be donated to the local firemen's fund.

Other accomplishments In 1879, Adams was chosen to be the official referee for the championship Collender Billiard Tournament held at Tammany Hall. It was contested by top players Marice Daly, Albert Garnier, Eugene Carter, A. P. Rudolphe, Randolph Heiser, William Sexton, George F. Slosson, and "the Wizard", Jacob Schaefer, Sr. at the newly introduced carom billiards discipline called the champion's game, an intermediary game between straight rail|straight rail and balkine. On a previous trip to London in 1887, Roberts offered Adams £60 a week for six months to give exhibitions, but Adams declined, citing a need to superintend his sporting journal. and the general manager of the New York Sporting and Theatrical Journal. Through his association with the sporting journals, Adams was an intermediary for the issuance of challenge matches, such as boxing bouts. He held the winning stake and distributed the winnings upon the event's conclusion. Adams owned a number of billiard parlors during his lifetime, including two in Chicago—one named the White Elephant, and one on Union Square at 60 East 14th Street in New York City. Adams' business cards, in 1877, said, "Yank Adams, champion finger billiardist of the world. Residence immaterial." 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."

In 1923, when Adams was 76, the following newspaper story appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune, 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 roomkeepers, 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." Adams played only with his fingers, disdaining the cue stick entirely. He was known for his skill at finger billiards and 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 the speed of the tables varied almost nightly, some fast and some slow. For example, at an exhibition held in Omaha, Nebraska, on November 20, 1889, Adams played against twenty of the best players in the city. Adams manipulated the balls with his fingers, while his opponents used cues and were given a handicap equivalent to a 1,000 point lead. 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.