Pitcher Perfect

In fact, they’re the first thing one sees when walking down the stairs into Henry Slusarek’s Peru basement.

All 400 trophies sit on the back wall, filling four shelves, smiling at whomever walks down those stairs.

It’s taken Slusarek a lifetime of horseshoes, bowling, table tennis, badminton and baseball to collect them. It takes almost as much time to dust them.

“Most guys that have the trophies, they put them in boxes and they store them away; they don’t ever look at them,” Slusarek says. “Yeah, I spend a lot of time down here.”

Most of the trophies come from horseshoeing, a sport the 81-year-old Slusarek has been playing for 70 years since he was 12. When he started playing, horseshoes weren’t bought at a store.

No, he got them straight from the horse’s hoof.

Since then, he’s won a state title in the sport in 1995 and has placed second or third a couple of times.

“Don’t mean much now, but at the time I was happy about the awards,” Slusarek says. “It was a good feeling. I was built like a greyhound then. I could move around, but all that quickness is gone. When you get in your 80s, it’s a different ball game.”

Trophies, trophies everywhere

The trophies are all kept clean and there’s not a web in sight.

Also on the shelves are the awards his son, Don Slusarek, won while playing basketball at La Salle-Peru High School.

His son now lives in Naperville and his daughter, Paula, lives in Dimmick. He has no grandchildren and few living relatives.

“They’re all gone,” Slusarek says. “My whole family is gone. They’re all in heaven.”

As are many of the men he’s played with throughout the years, guys like Art Ulrich, a Hall of Famer, and Jack Gerrard.

“Many of the players I started off with, they’re all deceased,” Slusarek says. “Just lost a partner last year, Jack Gerrard, died of a heart attack. He drove me all over. He was the driver when we played in all those tournaments. We went to Iowa, I think we were in Indiana.”

Losing his partner is one of the reasons Slusarek has decided to retire after this season. He says he will still compete in the La Salle Horseshoe League if he feels up for it, but that’s he done with traveling.

He’ll be quitting while he still has it, though, unlike many athletes.

Slusarek competed in nine tournaments in 2003. This year, he placed first at the Streator Doubles Tournament with Gary Bosi, the president of the La Salle Horsehoe League.

He also placed first at the Sheridan Firecracker Tournament on July 4.

Those two trophies are displayed in the living room at the moment, though they will eventually join their brethren in the basement.

“The last 25 years is when I’ve won the majority of the trophies,” Slusarek says. “Before that times were tough; we didn’t do much traveling, didn’t have any cash, so we just played locally.”

Ring around the ringer

Slusarek has lived in his Peru home for 50 years now, since 1954. The basement is his substitute for a garage, the place where he spends his free time, does odd jobs and works on his hobbies.

On a table in the back corner of the room is a jigsaw puzzle he’s working on. It’s about half finished and the pieces that are remaining are lined up perfect rows and columns.

Most of the basement is like this. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Consistency is one of the most important parts of horseshoeing. Being able to throw the horseshoe to the exact same point time after time after time.

Slusarek competes with the La Salle Horseshoe League on Thursday evenings. On a humid night last Thursday, Slusarek was one of the few people dressed in slacks. Slacks and a white T-shirt with the La Salle horseshoe league logo on the front of his name on the back.

In his first match, he competes with his partner Jerry Szymovicz against two guys, one of which who looks to be in his early 20s.

Henry has a smooth style when throwing the horseshoe. The lefthander steps forward with his right foot, flips the horseshoe with his wrist and stands there as the shoe rotates in the area and lands perfectly around the pole for a ringer.

The younger man makes an unbelieving face every time this happens.

“I watch other people’s expression when they go up and play Henry,” Bosi says. “And I see their eyes pop out of their head when he throws a double ringer on the first throw.”

Each person gets to throw the shoe twice before the next person throws. A ringer on both throws is a double ringer.

“What happens is they know they have to play their best,” Bosi says of Slusarek’s opponents. “And a lot of times they do play the game of their lives because Henry usually brings out the best of everybody.”

He brought out the best in his opponents in the first match as they slipped away with a 57-55 victory. Of course, it was only 57-55 because Slusarek’s team had to give the other team 31 handicap points making the actual score 55-26.

In horseshoes, a team will make 50 throws. A ringer is worth three points and any shoe that is within six inches of the pole is worth one.

“I give Bosi a lot of credit,” Slusarek says. “He’s got those young kids started over there. I don’t like to play too good over there because that would discourage the guys. I’m getting practice in, but trying to help them too.”

Slusarek is very calm and methodical when playing. He doesn’t say much, but smiles often in an almost shy way.

“He’s always encouraging other people,” Bosi says. “Always watches other people. He’s always the first person to congratulate somebody when they throw a double ringer. When it comes to the last throw to win a game, he’ll wish the person the best of luck, and he’ll remind them to stay focused.”

The importance of being Henry

An art stand is in the other corner of the Slusarek basement.

Paints, brushes and various types of paper are strewn about and it is the only part of the room that is even slightly disorganized.

Slusarek loves to paint, though he admits he isn’t very good at it.

He paints simple things like flowers and nature scenes, settings that are similar to the jigsaw puzzles he likes to build.

The creative process can take other routes, though, and one of these routes was the La Salle Horseshoe League that he helped create.

“We were playing in a league in Princeton, kept playing there year after year and all of the sudden I got the idea, hey let’s make our own courts over here and make our own league,” Slusarek says. “Art Ulrich and I went to see the mayor (Al Gunia at the time) and he put the courts up there and that’s how we got started.”

The league is now 34-people strong and is looking to grow since the city will soon put in more horseshoe pits at M&H Park.

The league is part of Slusarek’s legacy and may help him get into the Illinois Horseshoe Hall of Fame, an honor Slusarek actively pursues.

“I think I was voted on a couple of times, but didn’t have enough votes,” Slusarek says. “It’s not only being good, it’s how much you’ve done for horseshoeing throughout the years.”

Slusarek seems reluctant to draw attention to himself, but as he says, there’s no one left to do it for him.

“All the people that were behind me, that worked with me, that played with me, they’re gone,” Slusarek says. “That makes it rough. That’s why it more or less sounds like bragging to me. I’m blowing my own horn all the time because there’s no one else around doing it.”

Slusarek is obviously proud of his accomplishments in life. He’s proud of his trophies, proud of his children, proud of his 57-year marriage to Marian Slusarek, proud of his basement.

“I just want to live my life as I’ve been living it a few more years,” Slusarek says. “Get to 82, you get to thinking about it’s almost your time and if I can continue to play even a little bit that would help.”

He has to keep going. He still has a bit more space to fill on his trophy wall.

Said the 75-year-old Peru man and the 1997 Aurora Sports Festival Class A horseshoe champion: "I really enjoyed myself. The competition was pretty good here."

Slusarek was being modest. According to tournament director Ralph Oliver, the horseshoe competition included "some of best in Illinois." Oliver said that the class A competition came in carrying a 40 ringer percentage, which means they could ring up 40 out of 100 shoes from about 40 feet away at any given time.

The top horseshoe pitchers in the nation ring up 70 percent of their attempts.

Slusarek, who entered the Aurora Sports Festival with an impressive 44 average and having won two competitions already this year in Kankakee and Yorkville, proved a real ringer himself when he pulled out one his early matches, 33-32, by putting his last two shoes around the 15-inch high stake.

"The key is practice," said Slusarek. "I play twice a week with the La Salle League, Mondays is singles competition and Wednesdays is doubles, and every weekend I travel to competitions."

Slusarek, whose next three weekends will take him to Sheridan, Princeton, and Tremont for tournaments, always comes to play with his wooden horseshoe box that carries custom made shoes, files, measuring sticks, tape and calipers. He wrapped up his latest championship Saturday with close victories over Oliver in the finals and Lloyd Hansen of Sheridan in the semi-finals while a rock and roll band and Monster Trucks roared up on a nearby hill.

Because of his advanced age, Slusarek gets to pitch his 2-½ pound shoes five feet closer, from 35 feet instead of the regulation 40 feet. But no one was complaining. Like everyone else, Slusarek still had to control his shoes to flip 1-¼ times in the air before landing on or near the stakes in the carpeted pit area.

"It's a great social sport, horseshoes," said Slusarek. "I've been playing since 1936 and I've met some real decent people at competitions. After a while you get to know all the guys. In this sport you can be competitors and friends at the same time."

Fred Morel of Millington won the Class B competition with Aurora's Ricky Rieckert taking second and Earlville's Lathan Allred finishing third. Naperville's Haun Porter was first in the Class C competition followed by Lloyd Merriman (second) and Sandwich's Bob Aters (third).

On down the road, the sound of "clink, clink" was the annual Horseshoe Tournament. In the tournament, eight pitchers rotated pitching horse shoes. The pitcher having the most points after all had played against each other is the winner.

According to the Superintendent of the tournament, Eldon Bryant, the tournament has been played at the Livingston County Fair for about 20 years. He has been in charge for six years. Most of the pitchers belong to the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association, headquartered in Springfield, he said. Henry Slusarek of LaSalle-Peru won Class B again.

As Bryant was explaning that a pitcher has to have 40 points to win, he said, "Slusarek hit a double," meaning two horseshoes he pitched ringed the stake. A moment later, he said, "He hit another double."

Slusarek, a very active 76-year old started pitching horseshoes in 1934, and is an annual articipant in the Livingston County Fair horseshoe-pitching competition. Wednesday he reached the 40 point maximum first, and, though the competition was not finished, Bryant said he would be the likely winner.

It is no wonder this fellow is so agile and active. He plays table tennis, was the badminton senior's state champion three times in the 60's, and has won thirty medals in Senior Olympics in Springfield.

"I have over over 350 trophies, certificates, and plaques on the walls in the basement of my home," Slusarek said. "I find it fascinating competition and enjoy the people I meet and the fellowship."

And, oh yes, he bowls in the winter. What a great outlook on life.