1
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 bro