The most far-reaching decisions of life often require little to no deliberation. They're made for us.
Thus, maybe the easiest part of building Winston-Salem's new ballpark in 1956 was deciding what to name it.
"Ernie Shore symbolizes baseball in Winston-Salem," Mayor Marshall Kurfees declared in making the announcement. "He is known all over the community as 'Mr. Baseball,' having a wonderful career in the major leagues and pitching one of only four perfect games.
"I think it is fitting that our new baseball park should be named in honor of one of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County's best citizens."
And that's how the park, which has served as home field for Winston-Salem's professional baseball teams the past 53 years, became known as Ernie Shore Field.
Shore was in the 21st of his 34 years spent as sheriff of Forsyth County when the park was opened. He was more than the head law officer. He was a leader, if not the leader, of the Democratic Party that dominated the county's political landscape in those days.
And he had chaired the 18-man committee, called the Shore Committee, that raised the first $125,000 of the $200,000 needed to build the park.
Technically, he wasn't a native of Winston-Salem, but he was from a short enough drive down the road to be called one of our own. Born May 25, 1891, in East Bend, he grew up in the community of Flint Hill in Yadkin County and played ball at East Bend High School.
By the time he attended Guilford College, he had forged enough of a reputation as a good country hardball pitcher to draw attention of professional scouts. Everyone could see that Shore, a lanky 6-4 right-hander, threw hard. But those who looked closely enough noticed that the index finger on his right hand was a little shorter than the one on his left, and was almost always covered in calluses. When he gripped the ball just right and let it go, the ball was known to drop by as much as a foot.
Jack Dunn, the man famous for discovering Babe Ruth, signed Shore in June of 1914 to play for the Baltimore Orioles, then a minor-league team. A month later, Dunn sold Ruth, Shore and a catcher named Ben Egan to the Boston Red Sox for $8,500, plus the cancellation of a $3,000 loan that owner Joe Lannin of the Red Sox had fronted for Dunn to make his payroll.
As legend would have it, Ruth and Shore rode a train into Boston on July 11 and walked across Dartmouth Street to Landers Coffee Shop. There they were served breakfast by a 16-year-old waitress named Helen Woodford, who three months later became Ruth's first wife.
Shore roomed with Ruth, but the two weren't exactly fast friends. Shore was 23, and a college graduate. Ruth was 19, and what education he had came from his 13 years spent growing up at an institution in Baltimore run by the Xavierian order of Catholic brotherhood known officially as St. Mary's Industrial School for Orphans, Delinquent, Incorrigible and Wayward Boys.
Shore in later days described Ruth as a nice enough person, though immature and shockingly crude.
When he decided to find another roommate for road trips, his public explanation was that he was tired of Ruth using his toothbrush.
Shore actually beat Ruth out of a spot in the rotation in 1914, making 17 starts to Ruth's three. But the moment in baseball history that linked the two forever transpired on July 23, 1917, in Fenway Park.
Ruth, by then the best left-handed pitcher in the American League, started a game against the Washington Senators by walking Ray Morgan on four pitches. Incensed by the calls, Ruth first threatened to punch the umpire, Brick Owens, in the nose, and upon getting ejected, rushed home plate and unloaded a wild haymaker that landed on the back of Owens' head.
Ruth was relieved by Shore, who was working on two days' rest. Morgan tried to steal second, but was nailed by catcher Sam Agnew. Shore proceeded to retire all 26 batters he faced in order for what was deemed the fifth perfect game in major-league history and the third since the American League was launched in 1901.
Shore's best season was 1915, when he was 19-8 with a 1.64 ERA. But his career was short-lived. In 1917, he pitched 12 innings to beat the Cleveland in a key September game and woke up the next day unable to raise his right arm.
He never fully recovered, instead spending 1918 in the minors and 1919 and 1920 as a second-line pitcher for the New York Yankees. He retired after the 1920 season with a career record of 65-43 and earned-run average of 2.45.
Shore returned to Forsyth County to first sell cars and later insurance. He married Lucille Harrison, an art teacher from Spartanburg, S.C., whom he met when both roomed at Mrs. Atkinson's boarding house on Trade Street. The depression hit in 1929, and times were hard for the couple and their three children.
By 1936, Shore was $20,000 in debt. When John C. Whitaker and Edward Lasater, two high-ranking officials in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, proposed backing Shore in the campaign for sheriff, Shore agreed to run.
The job, after all, paid $4,000 a year.
Shore worked hard, rising at 4 a.m. to shake hands with the farmers before they hit the fields, and was popular enough to win a primary runoff with the largest margin of victory by any opposed candidate in Forsyth County history.
He had seven deputies when he became sheriff in 1936, but the department swelled to 70 by the time he retired in 1970. He was widely known as a kind and fair sheriff who loved nothing more in the world than a good possum dinner.
He was revered by his deputies, who called him "the Old Man."
In 1991, 11 years after Shore died, an eight-man Committee of Statistical Accuracy changed Shore's perfect game to a combined no-hitter between Shore and Ruth.
But if one has to share a record, who better to share it with than Babe Ruth?
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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