Keith Zimmerman is a professional pitcher.

But the 81-year old Santa Marian does not throw a baseball to a catcher's mitt. Rather, he pitches a horseshoe into a pit and, most of the time, it's a ringer.

“I have never thrown a shoe to miss,” he said.

Zimmerman is the reigning Southern California Class ‘B' Champion for the National Horseshoe Pitching Association (NHPA).

And his statistics are very similar to that of a Cy Young pitcher in Major League Baseball. He's won 24 tournaments and placed second in 26 others during his 10-year professional career.

But perhaps his biggest accomplishments have come off the horseshoe pits, where Zimmerman survived cancer as well as a heart attack.

Zimmerman was competing at a horseshoe tournament in Bakersfield when he suffered a heart attack. He had just tied his opponent with a pitch to put it into a playoff when it happened. He then drove himself to a nearby hospital and underwent quadruple bypass surgery.

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Two years later, he returned to the same competition and won the Class ‘A' championship by one point in a playoff.

“Just the fact that I was physically able to endure it,” said Zimmerman of returning to competition. “Once things happen, you are constantly testing yourself.”

Nonetheless, every day Zimmerman walks over to his man-made horseshoe pits inside Rancho Buena Vista Estates in Santa Maria - and starts pitching until he's satisfied with the results.

“If I come up here and I'm hitting good, I don't stay too long. I go golfing,” said Zimmerman, who retired in Long Beach and moved to Santa Maria 15 years ago. “Every day when I come out here, I think what can I do to improve.”

He modifies his stance and his throwing style trying to perfect it for the next competition.

“Everybody has their own style,” he said.

Zimmerman recently placed fourth at the Bicknell Open in Bakersfield. He lost his opening match against the reigning world champion, who flew in from Reno, Nevada.

“That was tough,” he said. “It was not one of my better days.”

Zimmerman learned to pitch when he was down in Long Beach at Southgate Park.

At the park, across the street from his former residence, Zimmerman was taught by four men who were all members of the Horseshoe Hall of Fame.

“They taught me how to hold the shoe and what to do with it,” said Zimmerman. “They sent me down to into the corner of the court and I threw into pits with no stakes. They said when they landed in to come over and join them.”

It took him two weeks to get his pitching right, but three months later he came away with a championship trophy from a Southgate tournament.

“I was so proud of that little (trophy),” said Zimmerman, who now has a 14-1 record at Southgate with a pair of tournament titles.

Before retiring, Zimmerman also played leisurely at horseshoe pits during his lunch breaks from work.

“We'd gobble down lunch and throw for 20 minutes,” he said.

But it was not until a friend, Fred Whitman, convinced him to play professionally that Zimmerman started to record tournament victory after tournament victory.

“I held out for a long time because I didn't like to pitch against 30-footers,” said Zimmerman, who waves the option in the senior division to move up from the standard 40-foot distance between pits.

Zimmerman, who competes in an average of 18 tournaments each year, is glad he made that decision.

“We take our wives,” said Zimmerman. “Our wives are the scorekeepers.”

In this year's tournament at Southgate Park, Zimmerman was in a battle with opponent Fred Brand as the two were tied at 35-35, forcing a sudden death round. After remaining tied 38-38, Zimmeran pitched a pair of ringers to win the title. A ringer is when the horseshoe hooks around the metal pin.

Zimmerman recorded ringers on 24 of 48 pitches.

“You never know who you're going to play until you get there,” said Zimmerman.

At the World Championships back in July, Zimmerman placed second despite tying the eventual champion. Since then, he's defeated that same opponent in two head-to-head matchups.

Up next, Zimmerman is heading to Beatty, Nevada at the end of the month for another competition - and until then he'll be out practicing his pitching.

October 19, 2005