You Know Me, Al

You Know Me, Al is a classic of baseball, the game and the community. Jack Keefe, one of literature's great characters, is talented, brash, and conceited. Self-assured and imperceptive, impervious to both advice and sarcasm, Keefe rises to the heights, but his inability to learn makes for his undoing. Through a series of letters from this bush-league pitcher to his not-quite-anonymous friend Al, Lardner maintains a balance between the funny and the moving, the pathetic and the glorious. Nostalgic in its view of pre-World War I America, a time before the "live" ball, a time filled with names like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Eddie Cicotte, this is not a simple period piece. It is about competition, about the ability to reason, and most of all it is about being human. Read more