Pitching horseshoes, like golf or other outdoor sporting pastimes, can lead to unhappiness because of the short playing season encountered in cold-weather states.  Like Minnesota.

 

Becker resident Russ Girtz is one such enthusiast, having pitched horseshoes for most of his life.  He is also a problem-solver.  An engineer at the Xcel Energy Sherco facility in Becker, Girtz has also been instrumental as a mentor for the Becker High School Robotics Team, a fledgling outfit with some state titles to its credit in its short history.

 

So when he and some pitching friends decided to find a way to extend the horseshoe season locally, it did not take long before they had a workable solution.  The truck bays in the old fire hall on Hancock St., now the Becker American Legion building, were not in full-time use, the group discovered, and would make a perfect site for a portable indoor horseshow pitching facility.

 

The group attended a Legion meeting this summer to pitch the idea to the members, who promptly agreed.  The players agreed on a donation to the facility, and the Legion welcomed the group to their new cold-weather home.  The site features overhead heaters, allowing layers to throw shoes in their shirtsleeves, just as they would in the middle of summer.

 

The stake boxes and rubber floor mats are easily portable, Girtz said, so that the facility can be converted to other uses with minimal difficulty.

 

The portable horseshoe pits are lined with blue clay, which led to the nickname of the organization: “The Clank & Thud Horseshoe Club.”  The “clank” is, ideally, the sound a shoe makes with it hits the pin (or another shoe), and the “thud” is the noise it makes when it hits soft, sticky clay.  The clay is kept damp (one cup of water per day per pit, according to “groundskeeper” Wayne Peterson) both to contain the shoes and to keep the soil from spraying out of the stake box, as sand would.

 

The club hosts “Open Shoe Night” each Tuesday from 6-8:30 p.m., Girtz said, when anyone interested in throwing horseshoes, or learning more about the sport, is welcome to come in and give it a try.  The club will provide the horseshoes, and a place to throw them, Girtz said, all that is really all that is needed to play the game. 

 

The league throws on Wednesday nights during those same hours, with 10 members currently signed up.  The age range includes 17 year-olds to throwers in their 70’s, Girtz said, with “varying” capability levels.  Youngsters, women and senior citizens throw from a shorter distance from the pin, Peterson said, which he calls the “skirt line” (mainly to tease long-time pitcher Boots Skelton, who now qualifies.)

 

Girtz, Peterson and Skelton are joined on league night by well-known local thrower Jim Aleckson and Tom Zimmerman, Gary Spoden, Alden Secord, Ron Ruch, Chuck Wold and Don Claseman.  Following in their fathers’ footsteps, Dani Girtz and RaeJean Peterson are among the younger set who show up to pitch on a regular basis.

 

League play will conclude early next month, Girtz said, with open throwing coming to an end around December 31.  The group hopes to begin indoor competition again in March, but plans have not been finalized at this time.

 

More information on horseshoe pitching is available from websites for the Minnesota Gopher State Horseshoe Pitching Association (MGSHPA) and the National Horseshoe Pitching Association (NHPA), Girtz said.