Names fade, even names as distinctive as Ring Lardner, who was for a time as popular, famous and influential as any writer of the 20th century. His full name was Ringgold Wilmer Lardner and he was the youngest of nine children born to a prosperous family in Niles, Michigan, in 1885. He began his writing career as a reporter for the South Bend Times, worked for a number of newspapers here and elsewhere before settling in at the Tribune, where in 1913 he took over the then-new sports column called “In the Wake of the News,” now in the capable hands of Paul Sullivan. His specialty was baseball st…