Alibi Ike
By Ring Lardner
And you ought to hear him out there on that field! There wasn’t a day when he didn’t pull six or seven, and it didn’t make any difference whether he was goin’ excellent or bad. If he popped up in the pinch, he should have made a base hit, and the reason he didn’t was so-and-so. And if he cracked one for three bases, he ought to have a home run, only the ball wasn’t lively, or the wind brought it back, or he tripped on a lump o’ dirt, roundin’ first base.
One afternoon in New York, he beat all the records. Big Marquard was workin’ against us, and he was good. In the first inning, Ike hit one clear over that right-field stand, but it was a few feet foul. Then he got another foul, and the count came to two and two. Then Rube slipped one across on him, and he was called out.
Genre: Humor
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Ring Lardner
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner (March 6, 1885 – September 25, 1933) was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre.
Biography
His contemporaries, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, professed strong admiration for his writing, and author John O’Hara directly attributed his understanding of dialogue to him. Ring Lardner was born in Niles, Michigan, and was the son of wealthy parents Henry and Lena Phillips Lardner. He was the youngest of nine children. Lardner’s name came from a cousin of the same name. The cousin had been named by Lardner’s uncle, Rear Admiral James L. Lardner, who had decided to name his son after a friend, Rear Admiral Cadwalader Ringgold, from a distinguished military family. Lardner never liked his given name and abbreviated it to Ring, naming one of his sons Ring Jr. He wore a brace for his deformed foot in childhood until he was eleven. He also had a passion for baseball, stage, and music. He later attended the Armour Institute in Chicago.
Ring Lardner
