Early Years
Kling was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of John (a German American baker) and Caroline Kling. It was expected that he would work in the bakery business, as his brother Charles seems to have done, but Johnny fell in love with baseball. By the age of fifteen, he was playing amateur ball. He also had an interest in pool, and began playing competitively even as he pursued a baseball career ("Match Game of Pool," 1897, 3). In late January 1904, Kling married Lillian May Gradwohl. While Kling was not born Jewish, his wife was, and they were married by a Kansas City Rabbi Harry H. Mayer, of Temple B'Nai Jehudah, a Reform congregation.
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