Cliff Thorburn admits he harboured ambitions to play baseball before turning attention to snooker

Snooker legend Cliff Thorburn admits he might have been misplaced to baseball. The three-time Masters champion, who at this time celebrates his seventy fifth birthday, has been over from Canada having fun with the event at Alexandra Palace.

Thorburn, who has solely simply absolutely retired, rejoiced in his nickname of the Grinder for his steely willpower and pedestrian tempo of play on the desk.

In addition to his exploits on the elite top-16 invitation occasion, he gained a world title and have become the primary participant to make a magical most 147 on the Crucible.

Former snooker World No 1 Cliff Thorburn revealed that he needed to play professional baseball as a youth

But as a teen rising up in British Columbia, Thorburn was a pitcher with a depraved curveball before being lured in by the ‘Fast Eddie’ hustler tradition surrounding pool and snooker.

He stated: ‘I played baseball as a kid, as well as soccer. I was a pitcher with a decent curveball playing little league in Vancouver. I was hard to hit as a pitcher but one day the coach called me over and said, “You should start throwing your fastball”.

‘When I explained to him I had been throwing it for the last half-hour, that probably saw the writing on the wall. Then one day I went to see my father bowling at the local alley and heard this clicking noise coming from an open door.

‘I went down a staircase and saw a guy double the black into the side pocket for some money. The notes flew on to the table, and a groan went up.

Thorburn(left) became the first player from outside of the UK to win a world title when he bested Alex Higgins in 1980

‘I ran up the stairs out of breath and said to my dad, “The fella doubled the black into the side pocket, and there was money and everything”.

‘He just said to me, “Don’t go down there”, and I ought to thank him once more as a result of clearly after that I had to go down there once more. I used to be 11 then, however didn’t actually begin taking part in till I used to be 15.

‘I have had a great week. The Masters tournament I always thought was the grandaddy of them all. The World Championship was and still is around 950 spectators.

‘But the Masters in the old Wembley Conference Centre days was a bit under 3,000 fans, and now at Alexandra Palace is over 2,000.

‘It is a very special tournament and I remain very proud to be one of the multiple winners. Ally Pally is a truly phenomenal arena. I get nervous for the players walking down the steps with their cues with all the people slapping their backs. It is a real rock-and-roll, movie star kind of place — I love it.’

2021 UK Championship winner Zhao Xintong has been suspended by the World Snooker Tour alongside ten different Chinese gamers

Meanwhile, the corruption investigation that has hung over this 12 months’s Masters is about to see important progress this week.

Ten Chinese gamers are suspended over a probe into match-fixing — together with Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao, who had been initially due to compete at Alexandra Palace. All 10 are doubtless to discover out inside days if they’re to be charged with any breaches of betting guidelines.

Former world champion Shaun Murphy has already known as for all times bans for any participant charged and located responsible of match-fixing.

But even when costs are forthcoming they might not all be for essentially the most severe match-fixing allegations, with hypothesis over the involvement of legal gangs and coercion of younger gamers.