As a student, Ring Lardner started a degree in engineering and never finished it. In fact, he soon felt that he was not made for the sciences. Later, he received his first job as a columnist in the South Bend Times to later join the famous Chicago Tribune. By that time, he achieved considerable success, mainly among baseball fans who liked his quips and his satirical and funny commentaries.  It was only in 1916 that Lardner decided to collect some of his works in a book that he entitled You Know Me Al. The publication was an astounding success and raised Lardner to important fame. The narrative takes the form of an epistolary novel in which the protagonist Jack Keefe, a baseball player, sends letters to his friend. Readers and reviewers appreciated Lardner’s exceptional style and sense of satire.

Other publications by Lardner followed, including Gullible’s Travels (1917), Treat’Em Rough (1918) and Haircut (1925) which were much successful. Such achievements made some compare Lardner to Mark Twain. Famous writers, including Virginia Woolf, praised Lardner’s work and insisted on its serious nature. It is thus that Lardner developed from a mere sports columnist whose works are occasional and related to specific sports events to a published writer whose works are to be republished, read and even adapted to cinema decades after his death. For many among today’s critics and readers, his sketches and characters bare American traits and serve as a window to American sports life of the period.

Among Lardner’s close friends was the famous Scott Fitzgerald while the great Ernest Hemingway was believed to be influenced by his writings and to emulate him at a certain period of his youth. In addition to journalistic reports and short story collections, Lardner also wrote for the theatre and even provided lyrics for musical compositions. In 1911, he got married to Ellis Abbot to have four sons. They all became professional writers, particularly Ring Lardner, Jr. whose contributions to successful American movies made of him a celebrity.

One of Lardner’s celebrated stories is Alibi Ike first published in 1915 in the Saturday Evening Post. The author in this short tale follows the career of a funnily strong-headed baseball player who is always ready to give farcical alibis for his failures as well as laughable reasons for his victories. Alibi Ike is only the nickname given to the protagonist Frank X. Farrell. When the story was successfully adapted to cinema in 1935, Alibi became one of America’s popular comic figures. Thanks to Alibi, to Jack Keefe and to many other heroes of his, Ring Lardner became remembered as one of America’s greatest satirists.