EAST HAMPTON, L. I., Sept. 25.--Ring W. Lardner, sports writer, author and playwright, died at his home here tonight of a heart ailment at the age of 48.

Mr. Lardner succumbed in his sleep. He had not been conscious since early in the afternoon. Mrs. Lardner and two of their sons, with Dr. Cornelius Tyson, Mr. Lardner's physician, were at the bedside when the end came.

The two sons were John Abbott Lardner, a reporter on The New York Herald Tribune, and Ring W., Jr., a student at Princeton University. The other sons, James Phillips, a student at Harvard University, and David Ellis Lardner, a student at Andover, were at school.

Mr. Lardner had suffered from a heart ailment for several years. In 1931, he went to Arizona to seek relief, and returned greatly improved. Last Spring a recurrence of the illness sent him to California, where he spent several months. He returned some weeks ago to his home here, and had spent much of the time since confined to his bed.

Besides his wife and sons, Mr. Lardner leaves two sisters, Mrs. R. G. Tobin of Douglaston, L. I., and Miss Lena Lardner of Niles, Mich., and three brothers, Rex Lardner, a member of the staff of The New York Times; Henry Lardner of Niles, Mich., and William Lardner of Duluth, Minn.

Had Cherished Three Ambitions

In a moment of whimsical autobiography some years back Ring Lardner explained that at various times in his life he had cherished three great ambitions. As a youth he wondered whether he would ever see enough baseball. Then, a little later and in a new period, he wanted to write stories for the magazines--and have them printed. Finally, in a more recent phase, he worried about whether he would ever have a play produced. He was successful in each of the three.

As a newspaper man and sporting reporter he saw all the baseball he liked--and, indeed, as he said afterward, more than that. But baseball led him into the field of magazines, and ultimately to the writing of the stories collected under such titles as "The Love Nest," "How to Write Short Stories" and all the rest. Then the stage followed as a matter of course. "June Moon," on which he collaborated two seasons ago, gave a happy proof of his abilities in that field.

In 1905 he closed the prelude to his career, for in that year he ceased keeping books for the gas company at Niles, Mich., and went to South Bend, Ind., to reporting and baseball. He had been born twenty years before, duly educated at the local high school and then sent, for an attempt at the lore of the engineer, to the Armour Institute in Chicago. He "had no more desire to be an engineer than to be a sheep herder," he said, and--his marks proving it--the authorities suggested the gas company.

Started as Sporting Editor

As he sat on his bookkeeper's stool his interest in baseball was getting stronger. Then his chance came. His brother, who also had deserted engineering for newspaper work, was the correspondent for a Sound Bend paper. He was a good one and the paper liked his work so well that a man was sent to offer him a staff job. The emissary stopped at the gas plant to inquire when the elder Lardner might be found. He went no further. Ring Lardner explained that the brother had "a contract he can't get out of, but I would make you a good man." He was hired.

For two years he was sporting editor of The South Bend Times, a position that carried with it the dubious corollary of being the local team's official scorer. He saw plenty of baseball, and the arguments due all official scorers. Then, in 1907, the world's series was played in Chicago, and Mr. Lardner, taking his vacation, went. He was introduced to Hugh Fullerton, the sports writer, who was the means of finding him a vacancy on the staff of The Chicago Inter Ocean. In the Spring he went on the road with the White Sox. One ambition was realized.

For the next six years he wrote sports in Chicago, Boston and St. Louis. In 1911 he married Miss Ellis Abbott of Goshen, Ind., and he was just paying for the furniture when his Boston paper was swept away. He borrowed the money for a return to Chicago from the owners of the Red Sox and the Braves. He paid them back, "to their astonishment," as he later explained. In 1913 Hugh E. Keogh, whose sport column, called "By Hek," was considered the best thing of its kind in the country, died and Mr. Lardner was given the difficult task of filling it. At first twenty letters a day to The Tribune told him how he failed.

Ventured on Use of Dialogue

It was in an effort to turn out seven columns a week that Lardner hit upon the method which was to make him famous. In hotel lobbies, clubhouses, dugouts, he had been listening to talk among the ball players--using slang and singular nouns and plural verbs mixed together. One day in an effort to fill out his piece he wrote a short dialogue supposedly between two players engaged in a Pullman car poker game. It was the mixture as noted above, with shrewd touches of character and the natural speech of the lowbrow.

The innovation was favorable received. In the world's series he invented a left-handed pitcher of the Giants, who reported the games in the Lardner style. Fans began asking who the author was, and a friend, the late Charles E. Van Loan, advised him to send some of his work to The Saturday Evening Post. He did so, and a check and a call for more came back. He was on his way to the fulfillment of the second ambition--and friend "Al" was created to delight a nation.

For the next six years Lardner continued to fill his column on The Chicago Tribune and to write magazine stories. In 1919 he left the paper to join a newspaper syndicate and moved to Great Neck, L. I. In the period before coming East, he published a number of books--"Bib Ballads," 1915; "You Know Me, Al," 1915; "Gullible's Travels," 1917; "Own Your Own Home," 1917; "Treat 'Em Rough," 1918; "The Real Dope," 1918; "My Four Weeks in France," 1918, and "The Young Immigrants," 1919. Later came "Symptoms of Being 35," "The Big Town," "How to Write Short Stories," "What of It?" "The Love Nest," "The Story of a Wonder Man" and "Round Up."

Mr. Lardner's most recent fiction stories were written for The American Magazine and The Delineator.

His First Play Produced

His coming to New York was the beginning of his third period. He admitted that he moved for no other reason than to be near the headquarters of the theatre. His weekly sketch for the syndicate could be written in Chicago as easily as in New York. Morris Gest, on a visit West, had "gambled" and had given him a five-year contract--but that impresario did not like Ring Lardner's plays. Other managers refused them, also.

In 1928 Walter Huston appeared in "Elmer the Great." This was satire, making the thick- headed pitcher the butt of more than a passing joke. And then, a year later, came the bounding "June Moon," which was suggested to George S. Kaufman and Mr. Lardner by one of the latter's short stories. He wrote the songs for it, also.

Also in his period of the theatre belong Mr. Lardner's sketches and lyrics. Back in 1922, in the Ziegfeld Follies of that year, was a Lardner baseball scene, with none other than Will Rogers as the veteran pitcher. A bit later in the season he was represented in "The 49ers," his contribution being an epic of three fishermen well out beyond the three-mile limit. There were several sketches by him in "The Nine Fifteen Revue" of 1930, and a number of lyrics in "Smiles" of the same year.

In the preface to "The American Language" occurs the following, by H. J. Mencken and George Jean Nathan:

"Its discovery [the speech of the masses as it is spoken] had to wait until Ring W. Lardner, a Chicago newspaper reporter. In his grotesque tales of baseball players, so immediately and so deservedly successful, Lardner reports the common speech not only with humor but with the utmost accuracy. His writings are a mine of authentic Americana; his service to etymology incomparable."