You Know Me Al

You Know Me Al is a book by Ring Lardner, and subsequently a nationally syndicated comic strip scripted by Lardner and drawn by Will B. Johnstone and Dick Dorgan. 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. Summary Jack Keefe is a headstrong, gullible, cheap, naive, self-centred, egotistical and uneducated rube—but he has a strong pitching arm. He begins the book as a minor leaguer 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. Much of the humour of the book is from Jack's boastful, oblivious nature, and his utter inability to recognize when he is being manipulated or cheated. In one of the book's many examples of this, White Sox owner Charles Comiskey repeatedly dupes Keefe during contract negotiations, but still convinces Keefe he's getting a good deal. Other characters also routinely manipulate Keefe into doing what they want—amongst the major characters, only Al, who is always offstage, seems to be completely aboveboard and loyal to Jack. (Coach Kid Gleason also seems to be honourable to Jack, though he is not above deceiving Jack when it's ultimately for Jack's own good.)