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Letter to the editor

For 48 years, he denied that it was engagement

By ANDREW MEACHAM, Times Staff Writer
Published November 20, 2007

The rumor at Derby Lane, passed by tittering regulars on the third floor, had it that Jerome "Shorty" Silverman and his girlfriend had been engaged for 48 years.

When asked if it was true, Mr. Silverman denied it.

"I'm not the marrying kind," Mr. Silverman told a reporter in September. The answer came quickly, as if he had explained it a million times before.

Virginia Cheshire, a physical education teacher who met Mr. Silverman in 1959, said Shorty, indeed, wanted to marry her, but she was gun shy after her previous nine-year marriage had ended in divorce.

"If we'd been married, we wouldn't have been together this long," said Cheshire, 82. "As long as we were doing so well, we might as well stay that way."

Whiplike and wiry, Mr. Silverman pitched and played the outfield for a minor league baseball team in Sanford in the 1940s. He made $125 a week.

"We would beat half of these teams playing today," Mr. Silverman said.

He grew up in St. Petersburg above his father's grocery store at Eighth Street and Fourth Avenue S, near Webb's City. Children called the area Salt and Pepper Town because of sharply drawn racial demographics south and north of the grocery store.

"But the kids all got out and played baseball together," said Corinne Goodman, 83, Mr. Silverman's sister.

As a child, Mr. Silverman watched New York Yankee stars Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig practice at Miller-Huggins Field. Later, he played baseball for the Air Force - so well, his sister said, that his commanders decided against sending him overseas at the end of World War II.

After he quit playing baseball, Mr. Silverman worked for St. Petersburg's recreation department until he retired.

In recent years, he liked to watch the Rays but harped on their play.

"He would say, 'I could go out there right now and beat them,'" said cousin Sharon Silverman, 70.

He met Cheshire while bowling. For the next 48 years, the couple went square dancing and went to movies together, ate at Morrison's Cafeteria and Wolfie's Restaurant, took in tennis tournaments at Bartlett Park and played mixed-league softball.

He showed her how to bet the dogs. Once, at Tampa Greyhound Track with Shorty at her side, Cheshire hit the double quinella for $3,000.

Everyone at Derby Lane knew Shorty. A trainer friend even named a dog after him. The canine Shorty Silverman ran for a few months in Miami before his racing career ended.

But Mr. Silverman's friendships - and engagements - endured.

"He pretty much made friends everywhere," his sister said.

Mr. Silverman died on Friday after worsening heart trouble. He was 86.

Jerome Silverman

Born: April 24, 1921.

Died: Nov. 16, 2007.

Survivors:sister, Corrine "Corky" Goodman (Sidney); longtime companion, Virginia Cheshire; several nieces, nephews and cousins.

Service: 2 p.m. today , David C. Gross Funeral Home, 636 Central Ave., St. Petersburg; burial to follow at Royal Palm Cemetery, 101 55th St. N.

[Last modified November 20, 2007, 00:44:16]