The great Ring Lardner‘s lede for his 1920 gem, “A World’s Serious:”

ADVANCE NOTICE

Sept. 30. – All though they have been world serious practally every yr. for the last 20 yrs. this next world serious which is supposed to open up Wed. p.m. at the Polo grounds is the most important world serious in history as far as I and my family are conserned and even more important to us than the famous world serious of 1919 which was win by the Cincinnati Reds greatly to their surprise.

Maybe I would better exclaim myself before going any further. Well, a few days previous to the serious of 1919 I was approached by a young lady who I soon recognized as my wife, and any way this woman says would I buy her a fur coat as the winter was comeing on and we was going to spend it in Connecticut which is not genally considered one of the tropics.

“But don’t do it,” she says, “unless you have got the money to spare because of course I can get along without it. In fact,” she added, bursting into teers,  “I am so used to getting along without this, that, and the other thing that maybe it would be best for you not to buy me that coat after all as the sight of a luxury of any kind might prove my undoing.”

“Listen,” was my reply, “as far as I am concerned you don’t half to prove your undoing. But listen you are in a position to know that I can’t spare the money to buy you one stoat leave alone enough of the little codgers skins to make a coat for a growed up girl like you. But if I can get a hold of any body that is sucker enough to bet on Cincinnati in this world serious, why I will borrow from some good pal and cover their bet and will try and make the bet big enough so as the winnings will buy you the handsomest muleskin coat in New England.”

Of course, we know how that turned out.

Regardless, “A World’s Serious” just gets better from there. So find a copy of The Portable Ring Lardner and read the rest of it.

As for the first game of the 2009 World’s Serious between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies, see here.

Then again, I’m not sure any Major League baseball team could have bested Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee last night.

See you tomorrow.