Alibi Ike

Alibi Ike
by Ring Lardner
From The Saturday Evening Post, 188 (July 31, 1915)

I
HIS right name was Frank X. Farrell, and I guess the X stood for
"Excuse me." Because he never pulled a play, good or bad, on or off
the field, without apologizin' for it.
"Alibi Ike" was the name Carey wished on him the first day he reported
down South. O' course we all cut out the "Alibi" part of it right away
for the fear he would overhear it and bust somebody. But we called him
"Ike" right to his face and the rest of it was understood by everybody
on the club except Ike himself.
He ast me one time, he says:
"What do you all call me Ike for? I ain't no Yid."
"Carey give you the name," I says. "It's his nickname for everybody he
takes a likin' to."
"He mustn't have only a few friends then," says Ike. "I never heard him
say 'Ike' to nobody else."
But I was goin' to tell you about Carey namin' him. We'd been workin'
out two weeks and the pitchers was showin' somethin' when this bird
joined us. His first day out he stood up there so good and took such a
reef at the old pill that he had everyone lookin'. Then him and Carey
was together in left field, catchin' fungoes, and it was after we was
through for the day that Carey told me about him.

"What do you think of Alibi Ike?" ast Carey.
"Who's that? " I says.
"This here Farrell in the outfield," says Carey.
"He looks like he could hit," I says.
"Yes," says Carey, "but he can't hit near as good as he can apologize."
Then Carey went on to tell me what Ike had been pullin' out there. He'd
dropped the first fly ball that was hit to him and told Carey his glove
wasn't broke in good yet, and Carey says the glove could easy of been
Kid Gleason's gran'father. He made a whale of a catch out o' the next
one and Carey says "Nice work!" or somethin' like that, but Ike says he
could of caught the ball with his back turned only he slipped when he
started after it and, besides that, the air currents fooled him.
"I thought you done well to get to the ball," says Carey.
"I ought to been settin' under it," says Ike.
"What did you hit last year?" Carey ast him.
"I had malaria most o' the season," says Ike. "I wound up with .356."
"Where would I have to go to get malaria?" says Carey, but Ike didn't
wise up.
I and Carey and him set at the same table together for supper. It took
him half an hour longer'n us to eat because he had to excuse himself
every time he lifted his fork.
"Doctor told me I needed starch," he'd say, and then toss a shoveful o'
potatoes into him. Or, "They ain't much meat on one o' these chops,"
he'd tell us, and grab another one. Or he'd say: "Nothin' like onions for
a cold," and then he'd dip into the perfumery.
"Better try that apple sauce," says Carey. "It'll help your malaria."

"Whose malaria?" says Ike. He'd forgot already why he didn't only
hit .356 last year.
I and Carey begin to lead him on.
"Whereabouts did you say your home was?" I ast him. "I live with my
folks," he says. "We live in Kansas City--not right down in the business
part--outside a ways."
"How's that come?" says Carey. "I should think you'd get rooms in the
post office."
But Ike was too busy curin' his cold to get that one.
"Are you married?" I ast him.
"No," he says. "I never run round much with girls, except to shows onct
in a wile and parties and dances and roller skatin'."
"Never take 'em to the prize fights, eh?" says Carey.
"We don't have no real good bouts," says Ike. "Just bush stuff. And I
never figured a boxin' match was a place for the ladies."
Well, after supper he pulled a cigar out and lit it. I was just goin' to ask
him what he done it for, but he beat me to it.
"Kind o' rests a man to smoke after a good work-out," he says. "Kind o'
settles a man's supper, too."
"Looks like a pretty good cigar," says Carey.
"Yes," says Ike. "A friend o' mine give it to me--a fella in Kansas City
that runs a billiard room."
"Do you play billiards?" I ast him.
"I used to play a fair game," he says. "I'm all out o' practice now--can't
hardly make a shot."

We coaxed him into a four-handed battle, him and Carey against