baseball success. Overall, he played in 1261 major league games, hit .272 with 20 home runs and 514 RBIs in his major league career. He had 1154 hits in 4246 at bats and scored 475 runs. In August 1902, he amassed a Major League Baseball record streak of 12 consecutive hits. Walt Dropo later tied the mark in 1952. He caught 115 shutouts during his career, ranking him 16th all-time among major league catchers. Pool vs. Baseball While he loved baseball, Kling never lost his devotion to the game of pool. In 1902, for example, one reporter called him the best pool player of any active baseball player. He often played for purses as high as $300, a sizable amount in that era. During this time, he also ran his own billiard room in his native Kansas City. During the early 1900s, his pool-playing career was regarded positively by sports reporters—in one article, he was praised as a baseball player who was not idle during the off-season; he was said to have "double[d] his diamond income" by being an accomplished pool player. His skill at pool also served him well when it came time to negotiate his baseball salary. Before the 1906 season he announced that he would not sign a new contract unless Chicago offered him a raise in pay, and if the raise was not forthcoming he would stay home and play pool. This angered his manager, Frank Chance, who snapped that everyone else but Kling had come to terms with the club. He subsequently did decide to play, raise or not. He had another impressive season, catching 96 games and hitting over .300 for the record 116-36 pennant winners. Although he once again told Cubs' management he was considering giving up baseball for pool before the 1907 season, he once again returned to play for the Cubs, who won the World Series in both 1907 and 1908. Then, in early 1909, after several solid years with Chicago, he engaged in another dispute with the management over salary and this time decided to spend some time away from the club. During that time he continued to compete in pool, winning the world billiards championship, and played semi-pro baseball with a Kansas City team. He sat out the entire 1909 season, and in early October competed against Charles "Cowboy" Weston and won the world's championship of pool. When he