Dean's Note: At the World Tournament in Greenville in 1999, a fellow pitcher handed this poem to me. Baseball has the poem "Casey at the Bat," written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, circa 1888. Horseshoe pitching should get equal treatment when teachers and school children read the baseball poem in the spring. They should also read the horseshoe pitching poem, "The Stranger Passing Through."

"The Stranger Passing Through" - Author Unknown Most ev'ry summer evening, a dozen men or more, Would gather for a horseshoe game, down by the gen'ral store. Some of the boys were pretty fair, once they had got their eye, You heard the shoes a ringing out, if you were passing by. Now old Jim Parks was eighty-two, but played right with the rest, And when he wasn't all "lamed up", you had to pitch your best. The barber was a pitcher who had won some local fame, He played a lot at county fairs, and seldom lost a game. They kept the clay pits up to snuff, and watered ev'ry day. The shoes would stick right where they hit and never slide away. They thought that they were pretty good, could throw a decent shoe, Until the day they chanced to play, 'the stranger passing through.' It seems that late one afternoon, this man drives into town, And figured that there wasn't time to get where he was bound. He left his horse at Riley's Barn and said, "I'm stayin' o'er." And put up at the boarding house down near the gen'ral store. And later on that evening, the stranger made his way, Down the street, to the horseshoe games, to watch the fellows play. Now just by chance, that summer night, they turned out one man shy, So someone asked the stranger there if he would like to try. He said he would be glad to play, and see what he would do, And that is how they came to meet 'the stranger passing through.' He rolled up his sleeves a bit and gathered up the shoes, And when he let the first one fly, they knew he was bad news. The first shoe was a ringer, you could see it all the way, Traveling in a perfect arch to nestle in the clay. The second shoe was just as good; I thought the judge would burst, As it went sailing through the air to land upon the first. They got on with the pairing up; One pitches number Two, And number Three, plays number Four; 'the stranger passing through.' He played them all that summer night, but no one had a chance. His arm moved like a smooth machine, they watched like in a trance. You would have sworn a magnet was embedded in the clay, As shoes went flying through the air, and landed there to stay. By now a crowd had gathered there, and soon the townsfolk knew, The local boys had met their match: 'the stranger passing through.' When all the games were over and they covered up the clay, They shook hands with the stranger, and then homeward made their way. The local boys were feeling sad, but this I know is true, They all felt better when they heard, he was just passing through.