Customer Reviews

You Know Me Al (Dover Thrift Editions)

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The travails of the boastful, blame-shifting, naive-unto-the-point-of-stupidity White Sox rookie first went into print 85 years ago. It's one of the miracles of 20th century fiction -- or a comment on the eternal childishness of America's national pastime -- that the bush leaguer's absurd confidences to a friend back home are still fresh and funny. "I have not worked yet Al and I asked Callahan to-day what was the matter and he says I was waiting for you to get in shape. I says I am in shape now and I notice that when I was pitching in practice this A.M. they did not hit nothing out of the infield. He says That was because you are so spread out that they could not get nothing past you. He says The way you are now you cover more ground than the grand stand. I says Is that so? And he walked away." Yeah, this is clearly the same sport where the portly John Kruk turned aside a question a few years ago about conditioning with the Bartlett's-worthy, "We're not athletes. We're ballplayers."

Lardner does more than get laughs at the expense of his dense protagonist, though. He gives an intimate picture of baseball in its first classic era -- the busher comes face to face with Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker and Walter Johnson with interesting results. But it's not a sentimental depiction of the age: Among those with whom the busher crosses paths is the famously parsimonious and autocratic White Sox owner, Charles Comiskey. The book gives a hint of the resentments that led his players to agree to throw a World Series (as they did a few years after Lardner wrote "You Know Me Al") and illustrates the indentured servitude that all but the best players endured before free agency arrived in the mid-'70s.

Ring Lardner was a newspaper sports writer in the early 1900s. He rode the trains with professional baseball players and joined in thier card games. "You Know Me Al" is a unique set of letters from a fictional rookie ball player to his friend Al back home. The book contains real teams and stats, but is a fast-reading fictional look at the lives of players. With everything from front office negotiations with Comiski to on-the-field trash talk, "You Know Me Al" is a must-read for baseball fans who miss the game of yesteryear.

This book was a real hoot to read. Ive always loved the language that revolved around the game of baseball. Ring Lardner does a credible job of creating this youthful prospect trying to make big in The Show. The format of writing letters gives it a touch a realism. The language and grammar of this semiliterates lend it a charm that is slightly reminiscent of Huck Finn. His delusional arrogance is more humorous than offensive in the long run. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the literature and journalism that surrounds this great American game.

Not being much of a sports fan, but for many years standing close beside one, I knew nothing of Ring Lardner until I visited Niles, Michigan, pursuing a story of my own. In a quaint hometown treasures museum, we discovered the local author gone national, with a first edition of "You Know Me Al" under glass. Intrigued, I purchased a modern day copy soon after for my sports fan, but I had to read it first myself.

In full agreement with Virginia Woolf in the book's Introduction, I can say you do not have to be a sports fan to enjoy Lardner's humorous portrayal of Jack Keefe, a bush-league pitcher who writes frequent letters to his best pal, Al, about his adventures on and off the baseball field. The letters are filled with hilarious misspellings, misunderstandings, and general bumblings. Jack may be a good athlete, but his mind, shall we say, is his least athletic muscle...

All of which adds to the slim book's charm. Jack writes to Al about his fortunes and misfortunes in pitching, forever blaming others for his own obvious failures, never missing a chance to boast, thumping his manly chest with threats that he will beat up this guy or that for some imagined slight. His arrogance is in high form, but just about the time it approaches the point of no return, Jack charms with his naivete. One can't help but laugh at him again, much as one laughs at a child or a wildly bounding puppy.

The letters are not just about baseball, however, but just as comically illustrate Jack's romantic flailings, as he imagines Violet is ever so smitten with him, then decides to marry another, only to drop her for another, only to long for the first again, only to marry Florrie. With whom the threat of divorce comes up again and again in similar cyclings. Jack waffles with all decisions in his life: team trips, moving from one city to another, borrowing and repaying funds to the silent and surely most patient and near saintly Al.

It is the lack of hearing from the other side that keeps me from adding a fifth star to this review. We have only Jack's view of himself and his world, charming bumbler that he is, and I found myself often wishing for Al's side in response. Nonetheless, this is a classic that can obviously be enjoyed even over a great passage of time since its original writing some eighty years ago, and with or without a penchant for sports.

I had not never heard of Ring Lardner until a visit to his home town in Niles Michigan right near outside of Kalamazoo. Born in Niles Michigan in 1885 Lardner was a sports writer for the Chicago Tribyoon but he is best well known for these busher letters that he rote as instalmints for The Satirday Eevning Post.

The best letters were collected for this book You Know Me Al that were first published in 1914. It cronikles a bushers rise to the major league threw a serious of letters written to his pal Al in Bedford Illinoy. Jack Keefe is a right hander pitcher who has got some good stuf but he is offten his own worse enemy. He sees the baseball world round him threw child inocents seeing his skills as supeerier to every one. Think Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham. His qwik tempurr shows when he looses it is because he got no support from his team and so he blaims every one but him. And in these letters to his pal Al he shows how all too human he is even as he shows no skill with girls his team mates his manager or at writing. No atemped is made to kleen up miss-spelled words or fix up bad grammer. These letters show a glimpse into the great game of baseball threw the eyes of some one who played for Charles Comiskey, ohner of the White Sox and against Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson.

You dont have to be a fan of the game to like this book. In fact I never knowed what a fadeaway fast ball was until I red this book. It is a fast ball that when the hitter hits it it fades away over the fence. And it can be red in a lot of ways. As historik fikshun a baseball book or a caractor study that shows that athaletes even then lived in a difrent world then ours. You can't not like this book.

Hily reckomended.

In the early days before ballplayers made a few billion dollars a year there was a young pitcher by the name of Jack Keefe who got called up from the minors to pitch for Comiskey's Chicago White Sox. He tells the story of this and his whole season in a series of letters to his friend ,Al. These letters are written in a special colloquial style and include the spelling and grammatical errors of the young pitcher, and also his quite surprising startling and humorous language. This is what this classic work of American humor is largely about. And while it is filled with sarcasm and a kind of mockery at the arrogance and naievete of its main character it also presents a picture of the baseball world of those days in the terms and language of that world.
A small American classic.

Athletes are much more educated & sophisticated today. But especially in baseball there are are still the fun-loving, ignorant, quick to anger, characters. Like Jack, for example. He is just dumb, lacking self awareness but kind of loveable & fun to party with. You'd root for him. What could be better. Talking baseball, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, that cheap owner, Charles Comiskey etc. Listening to the audio version as I drove along, I was smiling. It jogged my own memories of baseball seasons past, even though it is almost 90 years old. This was all before World War I, the Black Sox Scandal & even Babe Ruth.

This amusing look at baseball circa 1914 by sportswriter Ring Lardner (1885-1933) remains among the sport's top fiction. The story is told through a series of letters written by pitcher Jack Keefe of the Chicago White Sox to his buddy Al back home in Indiana. Keefe is a modestly talented pitcher finally getting his chance in the big leagues. Keefe is naive and immature, he has an excuse for every failure, and his childish emotions range greatly according to how his last game went. The author uses many real baseball figures in this story (Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, manager Nixie Callahan, etc.) and that lends an added layer of authenticity. This book also mixes readable prose with down home wit, and the result is a highly amusing novel in the style of Mark Twain.

Baseball a hundred years ago wasn't really much different than it is today. Only the names have changed. Talented pitcher Jack Keefe tells this story in the form of letters to his friend Al back in their hometown. Jack begins below the major leagues, but gets there with the White Sox. Jack shows his personality by his own descriptions of actions and events. Don't expect him to spell well or use the finest grammar, but frequently laugh at his choices and apparent delusion about who and what he really is. It may help if you know names like Cobb, Lajoie, Matthewson, and Comisky, and have some rudimentary knowledge of baseball, but this is an enjoyable book about Jack's life changing as his circumstances change. He faces baseball issues, management issues, women issues, and general life issues as a young man who shows himself to be naïve and not completely honest with himself about who he is. Good fun, well written in a voice that seems genuine for Jack, and definitely standing the test of time.

This is a classic. Every baseball fan with a sense of humor should take time to read this great book by Ring Lardner.