Who Was Ring Lardner
Ring Lardner (1885–1933) was, in his day, the sharpest ear in American sportswriting, and then he became something rarer still: a sportswriter who turned into one of the country’s best short story writers without ever losing the ballpark in his voice. He started out covering the Chicago White Sox and other big league clubs for Chicago papers in the years before the First World War, riding the trains with the players, listening to them talk, and noticing that the way they talked — boastful, ungrammatical, half-sharp and half-sincere — was funnier and truer than anything a sportswriter could invent on his own.
Out of that listening came “You Know Me Al,” a comic novel told entirely through the letters of Jack Keefe, a bush league pitcher who is convinced he is a genius and reveals, sentence by misspelled sentence, that he is nothing of the kind. It ran first as a magazine serial in 1914 and made Lardner famous. He went on to write dozens of stories — “Haircut,” “Alibi Ike,” “Champion” among them — that used the same trick on golfers, boxers, barbers, and ordinary heels: let a man talk long enough in his own voice and he will expose himself, usually without knowing it. Hemingway admired him, F. Scott Fitzgerald considered him a friend and a tragedy, and generations of American humorists since have worked in the vein he opened up: comedy built entirely out of vernacular voice, deployed against vanity, greed, and hype.
Lardner was, above all, suspicious of anyone selling a good time at a markup, and even more suspicious of anyone who called their markup an honor to the fans. He died in 1933, which means he never got to see a $7,380 ticket, a trade deadline broadcast like a war room, or a beloved shortstop discussed as a “trade chip.” It seemed like a waste. So this is an experiment in giving him the chance: a small, ongoing series of dispatches written in his voice, letters home from a bush league correspondent named Jack to his friend Al — the same conceit as “You Know Me Al,” just aimed at whatever nonsense the current sports news cycle has produced. Sports fans can expect to see more of him. He has, it turns out, plenty of material.
Below are three dispatches. The first ran earlier on the World Cup’s ticket prices, quartered matches, and VAR. The other two cover this week’s other big story, the frenzy of the 2026 MLB trade deadline — the Dodgers landing Tarik Skubal in a blockbuster, and the agony in Cincinnati over whether Elly De La Cruz gets sold off with him.
Jack Writes Home About the World’s Series of Football
Friend Al: Well Al I said I would drop you a line about this World Cup they been playing over here and I got to tell you Al it is the champion racket of all time and I include in that the time Bugs Larson sold them Fresno rubes a ticket to see a two headed calf which turnt out to be a regular calf standing next to a picture of a two headed calf.
You know me Al I am not a man that hollers about money on account of a man which hollers about money generally has not got any, but Al they was asking $7,380 for a seat to the championship game and when I ast the fellow at the window what for I get a folding chair for that kind of dough he says it is not a folding chair Al it is a Category Two Experience, and I says well does the Experience come with a hot dog and he says no sir the hot dog is a separate Experience.
So I got to thinking Al this whole tournament is run by fellows which never once in their life kicked a ball nor got kicked neither, and they set up in a office someplace and figure out how many quarters they can cut a game into, on account of two halves is bad for business but four quarters is four times as good, like a ball game would draw twice the crowd if you called it two games instead of one, which come to think of it Al somebody ought to try. They call it a Heat Break, on account of it being hot, which anybody could of told them August is hot without they had to charter no meeting about it, but I guess if you call a thing a Break the fellows selling programs and cold drinks get another crack at you before you go home, and that is the whole idea, Al, dressed up in a costume like it was for the players’ health.
And Al you should of seen the row over this fellow Zico from Egypt which put one in the net in the 62nd minute and it looked like a goal to everybody in the park including Zico’s own grandmother, only they got a machine now which looks at it from nine different angles and finds a fellow throwed his elbow out four seconds before which nobody seen including the referee, and they call this Var, and they wave the goal off and forty thousand people which paid Category Two money to see a goal get to see the goal took away from them by a machine instead. I said to the fellow next to me, I says, in my day if the ump missed one you hollered at the ump and went home mad, which is a man’s kind of mad, not this new kind where you go home mad at a machine and don’t even get the satisfaction of getting throwed out of the park for hollering at it.
But Al here is the part that beats all. Every one of these fellows selling you the $7,380 chair and the four quarters and the elbow machine keeps saying it is done out of Love of the Game, which is the same thing Bugs Larson said about the two headed calf, and I notice Al that whenever a man tells you a thing is done out of Love of Something you generally want to count your change twice before you leave the window.
Your pal, Jack
Jack Writes Home About the Big Trade
Friend Al: Well Al you ast me in your last letter did I hear about the Dodgers getting this fellow Skubal and Al I did not just hear about it, I could not get away from it, on account of every fellow in the barber shop and half the fellows in the hardware store had it on their phones like it was V-E day again. Skubal, Al, is the pitcher which has won the Cy Young twice running, which they explained to me is the prize you get for being the best pitcher in the whole league both years, and now he is going to a club which already won the whole thing last year, which strikes me Al as a fellow that already has a wife going out and marrying the prettiest girl in three counties on top of it, just so as no other fellow can have her.
I says to my brother-in-law, I says, is that even fair, one club getting the best pitcher going to join the best team already, and he says fair has not got a thing to do with it Al, it is a business, and I says well if it is a business how come every fellow selling the trade to us on the television keeps calling it a blockbuster like it was a moving picture and not a fellow getting sold same as a horse.
Meantime Al they was thirty other clubs standing around that same deadline like farmers at a auction with their hands in their pockets, half of them trying to buy and half of them trying to sell, and the sportswriters kept calling it a Seller’s Paradise on account of so few clubs was far enough out of it to give up, which if you think about it Al is a strange kind of paradise, being the fellow with the least hope forced to auction off your best furniture while the neighbors watch. I read where one club, the Reds, was fixing to sell off a pitcher name of Greene and was even talking about the shortstop, which I will get to in my next letter on account of that one like to put me off my supper.
Your pal, Jack
Jack Writes Home About the Reds Talking of Selling the Shortstop
Friend Al: I told you in my last letter I would write you about this Elly De La Cruz business and Al I have been putting it off on account of it does not sit right with me, and I am not even from Cincinnati.
Here is a fellow, Al, which the whole town has took to their heart, plays short like he was shot out of a gun, and every kid in that town has got his name on their back, and now here comes the front office fellows talking about him like he was a used car they was thinking of trading in on a newer model, on account of a young fellow’s value is highest right before he starts wanting to get paid what he is worth, which I understand is a thing they call the Window, same as the Heat Break was a Break and not just it being hot. They have got a name for everything now, Al, so as nobody has got to say the plain word for it out loud.
My brother-in-law which knows about these things says it would not be sentiment that stopped them if they done it, it would be arithmetic, and I said well arithmetic never sold a ticket to a kid who wants to watch his favorite player and my brother-in-law did not have a answer for that one, he just said that is baseball now Al, and I said it did not used to be, and he said it always was, we just did not have to watch the meeting where they decided it.
I do not know will they sell him or won’t they by the time this letter gets to you, Al, but I will say this, whichever way it goes, a lot of fellows in Cincinnati are going to feel about it the way you feel when a fellow tells you a thing was done out of Love of the Game.
Your pal, Jack
Leave a Reply