Appel: Baseball’s Golden Ring
From SABR member Marty Appel at The National Pastime Museum on July 17, 2013:
I was thinking about Ring Lardner when the Mets sent Ike Davis to the minor leagues in June. And we’ll get to that in a moment.
One thing I really like about Ring’s life, a century after his fame started to take hold, is that he was really just one of us — a sportswriter.
And he wound up being spoken of in the same breath with F. Scott Fitzgerald – a great man of letters, an American original.
It was largely because he had the gift of imagination, and the sense to listen when someone was telling a good story.
I would have rather known Ring Lardner than F. Scott Fitzgerald because he created Alibi Ike and Jack Keefe who were, in their own way, greater American characters than Jay Gatsby. And they were baseball guys.
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/baseballs-golden-ring
Originally published: July 22, 2013. Last Updated: July 22, 2013.