Tracing the roots of horseshoes
What to write about? Hmmm, … So, I pondered the following topics …
– Something about the Pirates, but that would be akin to watching a train wreck. You know what’s going to happen, you know it won’t be a pretty sight, and yet you can’t pull your gaze away.
– Perhaps explore the reasons why Michelle Wie feels the need to be a trailblazer at the tender age of 15 when most girls her age, not unlike my 16-year old niece Stephanie, are spending their time text-messaging (Remember the days when a telephone was like an extra appendage on a teenage body?) or waiting the day to come for their driving exam?
– Kenny Rogers. Why does the “Gambler” with a glove feel the need to hit all things inanimate lately? (Hey, Kenny, just a word from someone who’s been there. The inanimate object usually wins.)
With the Fourth of July in the recent past, I thought I’d do a little research about a sport that is intertwined in our family’s celebrations, as I’m sure it is with many other folks, so I decided to do a little bit on the history of throwing horseshoes.
The nation’s birthday is about the only time I toss the ‘shoes when my mother’s family gathers to celebrate in a bit of a unique manner.
The Fourth was a birthday celebration, but on the maternal side of my family we celebrated my the birthday of my grandfather, our “Pappap.”
(One of my cousins made it to my grandfather’s Italian birthplace and secured copies of his birth certificate. I don’t know much Italian but I did manage to figure out he was born on the 5th, not the fourth. However, Joseph Mongell was born in the morning so I guess he was born on the 4th of July in the United States.)
My grandparents had five boys and three girls, their contribution to the “Greatest Generation.” I’m one of 22 children, ages spanning over two decades from the oldest in their late 50s to the youngest, my sister Jennifer. (Notice how I responsibly didn’t tie any names with any specific ages?)
Well, anyway, horseshoes have always had a place around the eating of less-than-traditional holiday menu. (No hamburgers or steaks, no cole slaw or potato salad. There are hot dogs, i.e. corn dogs, or, as we know them, Aunt Fotenie’s Pronto Pups, but the rest of the covered dish is mainly ethnic foods such as meatballs, pasta, hot sausage, etc.)
There were the “lawn dart” years. Anyone remember those? I guess some government official acknowledged that metal darts, hot, muggy days, cold beer and young children running around was a dangerous idea for holiday fun.
Who threw the first horseshoes? Not surprisingly, the history can be traced back to Roman soldiers who occupied non-warring times by throwing metal rings over stakes placed in the ground.
Quoits, a game in which a metal disk with a hole in the middle is thrown on a stake, muddies the history of the sport. Scholars (?) aren’t sure which came first, but they do agree quoits was played in England during the 14th century to the chagrin of kings who felt soldiers should have spent more time practicing war skills instead of playing games.
Although banned in 1388, English peasants resurrected both quoits and horseshoes in the 16th century with the games eventually immigrating across the seas to North America.
Civil War soldiers had a lot of down time, so America’s fighting men filled their days with cards, baseball, drinking (whiskey rations were included) and, of course, horseshoes. As is often the case, the soldiers brought the wartime activity back to the farms and towns and, before you knew it, the game spread throughout the United States and Canada.
There’s evidence the first horseshoe club was founded in Pennsylvania in 1899 with the first world championship taking place in Bronson, Kansas a decade later at a horse show.
Initially, the 2-inch tall stakes were 38 feet apart with a ringer worth five points, a leaner three and close to the stake a one-pointer with games to 21 points. The game evolved throughout the 20th century with the stakes stretching out to the current 14-15 inches high, uniformity in horseshoe size and weight (between two pounds and up to 2 pounds, 10 ounces) and distance (40 feet for men and 30 feet for women).
Dubbed “barnyard golf” by an Akron sportswriter in the 1920s, the sport has grown over the past eighty years under the auspices of the NHPA, the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association. The NHPA oversaw addition rule changes in points awarded (3-2-1) and that games would be played to 40 points.
It is estimated by the NHPA more than 15 million people throw the occasion ‘shoe. World championships have been competed for men since 1909 and women since 1920. Championships are also awarded in boy’s, girl’s and senior divisions.
Well, back to the 2005 4th celebration. About 75 folks covering four generations braved the hot, humid day. Fortunately, water balloons and squirt guns found their way into both young and old hands.
As for the family 2005 horseshoe championship, a couple of young guns supplanted another duo of young bucks as Chris Tober and his future brother-in-law Dave Harbaugh, with a unique backhanded delivery, “de-crowning” the standing title-holding pair of Vince Wallander and Shawn Armstrong.
As for the Downeys, neither brother Pat, nephew Stephen nor I fared very well. The ‘shoes can be fickle pieces of metal!