Humorous stories of social climbing in America's "classless" society.

Ring Lardner is a typical parent when his first child is born, full of wonder and the rest of the usual emotions as he watches his little son grow. He wrote a series of 29 short poems on various facets of parenthood.

Big, fat, dumb, lazy, vain, headstrong and cheap, Jack Keefe is a journeyman pitcher with the Chicago White Sox in the rowdy days of the Deadball Era, circa 1915, ruled by the likes of Ty Cobb and John McGraw. In You Know Me Al, we follow Jack Keefe’s life on-field and off, via the letters Jack writes to his old chum Al in his home town of Bedford, Indiana.

Ring Lardner was a Chicago sportswriter who covered the White Sox, and he brought an insider’s knowledge of clubhouse life together with his biting wit and gift for the vernacular to create a comic gem in You Know Me Al. The six Jack Keefe stories that compose this volume were originally written as individual magazine arti...