{"product_id":"ring-lardners-you-know-me-al-the-comic-strip-adventures-of-jack-keefe","title":"RING LARDNER'S YOU KNOW ME AL The Comic Strip Adventures of Jack Keefe","description":"\u003cp id=\"isPasted\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eYou Know Me Al\u003c\/em\u003e is a book by Ring Lardner, and subsequently a nationally syndicated comic strip scripted by \u003cstrong\u003eRing Lardner\u003c\/strong\u003e and drawn by \u003cstrong\u003eWill B. Johnstone \u003c\/strong\u003eand \u003cstrong\u003eDick Dorgan\u003c\/strong\u003e. The series ran from 1914 through 1919. The book consists of stories that were written as letters from a professional baseball player, Jack Keefe, to his friend Al Blanchard in their hometown of Bedford, Indiana.\u003c\/p\u003e\nJack Keefe is a headstrong, gullible, cheap, naive, self-centered, egotistical and uneducated rube—but he has a strong pitching arm. He begins the book as a minor league player in Terre Haute, Indiana, who gets accepted by the big leagues to pitch for the Chicago White Sox, circa 1913. In his barely literate letters home to his friend Al, he details his first experiences in the big leagues, which ends in disaster as he pitches poorly and gets sent back down to the minors again. Later, he is accepted again by the majors, where he gains some success as a pitcher, but is taken advantage of by nearly everyone he meets.\n\nLardner was a sportswriter who relocated to Chicago in 1907, where he covered the Cubs and White Sox baseball teams for several city newspapers, most notably the Chicago Tribune. He used his experiences as a baseball writer for his first published piece of fiction, \"A Busher's Letters Home\", for the Saturday Evening Post in 1914.\n\nAccording to the introduction of the book \u003cem\u003eRing Around the Bases: the Complete Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner\u003c\/em\u003e, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, the Post published nine of Lardner's baseball stories during 1914, six of which comprised \u003cem\u003eYou Know Me Al\u003c\/em\u003e, published by George H. Doran Company in 1916.\n\n\u003cstrong\u003eOut Of Print. Condition: Very Good.\u003c\/strong\u003e Edge wear. Bumped corners with a two inch bend on the bottom back cover corner. Small tear bottom back cover.\n\n ","brand":"Harcourt Brace Jovanovich","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59642585219358,"sku":"RB6203","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0999\/0684\/7006\/files\/RB6203-ring-lardners-you-know-me-comic.jpg?v=1784510707","url":"https:\/\/shop.budsartbooks.com\/products\/ring-lardners-you-know-me-al-the-comic-strip-adventures-of-jack-keefe","provider":"Bud's Art Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}