Why didn't Saruman go to the Shire to take the Ring?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Gordis

THAT is amazing indeed. A certain plothole.

I wouldn't say that. What plothole? As much as Sauron never heard about "Mad Baggins" and put two and two together. Nobody knew that Bilbo has the Ring. People did not even know that he is making himself invisible, until the birthday party (where they actually didn't know that he is making himself invisible, but simply that he disappeared. Probably, speaking a bit in the folk-tale-style, the Devil took him finally, since he was obviously making pacts with dark forces: "Sign this and I will give you fame, money and long life... but on your 111th birthday, I will come for you!" - this is pretty evidently the way the tale was narrated later, and Saruman had no special reason to pay attention to this tale than to other folk-tales among the hobbits, about walking trees in the North Moors etc. After all, he was a reasonable and educated man, who does not bother himself with these made-up tales the common folk scares themselves on long winter nights). Bilbo disappeared, that's a fact, but why should that bother Saruman any more than the fact that some random Mr. G. Took from XY mysteriously disappeared two years ago (he was drunk and fell into the river and drowned), or things like that.