The California Chess Reporter

(Vol. VII, No. 3 - November 1957)

RING LARDNER AND CHESS

Ring Lardner is remembered with affection as one of America's outstanding humorists and commentators on the contemporary scene. His early career was devoted to reporting baseball, traveling with the Chicago Cubs. To relieve the tedium of Pullman travel, Lardner and Jimmy Shacked, Cub outfielder, startled their traveling companions by producing a chessboard, strewing it with men, and settling down to a lengthy and profound game. As Shacked, obviously pondering a move, would hover over a piece, Lardner would exclaim "Hah!," whereupon Sheckard would withdraw his hand hastily and continue peering at the position.

Awed by so great a display of brainpower, the team went to great extremes to maintain silence. It was some time before it dawned on them that neither man knew the first thing about chess!