Around Iredell Sports

2007 Sep-26

Moose lodge hosts horseshoe championships

By Larry Sullivan
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The steady clang of steel colliding with steel, the occasional thud from hitting wood, the subtle swish of landing in sand, and the constant hooting and hollering filled the horseshoe pitch stalls of the Mooresville Moose Lodge.

Nearly a dozen two-player teams converged on the six groomed pits maintained by local Lodge 2012, just of N.C. Highway 21 north of Mooresville, as it took its turn late this summer as the host of the annual N.C. Moose Lodge Horseshoe Championships.

“We pitch here just about every weekend, no matter the weather,” exclaimed Kelly Miller, former lodge president and a regular among the shoers. “This was just a little more special, though, than one of our regular gatherings.”

Indeed, although it didn’t have that kind of feeling.

Of the 10 teams comprising the field for two days of pitching, only two were made up of two players each from other visiting lodges. It wasn’t initially intended to be that way.

“We sent our invitations to a lot of other Moose Lodges,’’ revealed Jerry “Pop” Mills, who considers himself only slightly better in horseshoes than golf these days only because he doesn’t lose nearly as many of the U-shaped irons, “but we had only a few respond. This way, it’s a lot more friendly, though, because we’re all kind of pulling for each other.”

Teams of the twosomes spent the weekend throwing, using the opening day to determine seedings for the official double-elimination portion of the tournament that took place on the second and final day.

Each of the teams entered the event by name. The list of participating duos included The Sneakers, The DD’s, The Old Folks, The Hooter Guys, The Boot Leggers, The Lefties, The Sams, The Upsets, The Moon Beam and The Pearl Fed.

They all faced off against each other in a round-robin format the first day to accumulate won-loss records that would be used to designate seeds and assign pairings for the second day’s elimination round.

In the style of horseshoes which was played, the teams played games to 30 points, with the winning team having to have a minimum of a two-point edge. During the first day of play, teams engaged in two games apiece against each other to account for the team records.
Ringers counted as five points each, while those steel shoes that don’t ring the steel peg standing some 40 feet away only count as points if they are within a required distance from the stab.

Each of the pits at the host lodge is built the same. The targeted poles, sitting a couple of feet sticking out of the ground at the set distance of 40 feet apart, stand at attention in pits filled with loose sand. The back of each pit is banked by wooden planks that are deemed out of bounds if hit by a thrown shoe.

Players are able to stand either in the pits or to their side when taking their shots. In the team format, one member of each team is at opposing ends, tossing the shoes back and forth until a winner is declared. For the most part, entries in the field averaged a ringer – that being when the open end of the shoe wraps around the peg – being tossed some 50 percent of the time.

“I used to throw a pretty mean shoe,’’ offered Miller, whose appearance strikes a familiar look to that of the Yosemite Sam cartoon character. “I’ve still got a good touch. Sometimes, it just takes me a little while to zero in on the stab. I can’t throw as many ringers as I used to, but almost.”

For the Mooresville Moose Lodge members, the hosting of the state tournament merely accounted for a more formal gathering of their own weekly throws many of them also attend on a regular basis.

“We just like having good, old-fashioned fun,’’ noted Mills. “Heck, when most of us were growing up, all we had were horseshoes, a ball, bat and glove. We like to get together like this for some friendly competition.”

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