Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 5 -- Big doings in Detroit

"I says Well you can't see me. She says Why what's the matter, Jack? What have I did that you should be sore at me? I says I guess you know all right. You called me a busher. She says Why I didn't do nothing of the kind. I says Yes you did on that postcard.* She says I didn't write you no postcard."

-- Jack's account of a phone call he received
from Violet in his September 6 letter from Detroit

* "that postcard" --

"[L]isten Al I don't want to be bought by Detroit no more. It is all off between Violet and I. She wasn't the sort of girl I suspected. She is just like them all Al. No heart. I wrote her a letter from Chicago telling her I was sold to San Francisco and she wrote back a postcard saying something about not haveing no time to waste on bushers. What do you know about that Al? Calling me a busher. I will show them. She wasn't no good Al and I figure I am well rid of her. Good riddance is rubbish as they say."

-- from Jack's letter of May 20 from Los Angeles

by Ken

In presenting Jack's last letter, the August 27 one from Chicago, telling Al about his return to the big leagues and the game he pitched against the "Athaletics," the best team in baseball at the time, I went back and forth about whether to call attention to . . . um . . . I think perhaps I better declare a --

SPOILER ALERT

In the end I decided against saying anything about what I'm now going to say just a little about, because it seems to me that Ring has laid this all out so carefully that I don't want to deprive you of the chance to experience it the way he intended for at least the first time through.

What I might have called attention to is the P.S. to the letter, where Jack tells Al he's headed for his teammate Allen's ("the left-hander that was on the training trip with us") to play cards. The first thing to note is the pure-Jack evaluation of Allen's pitching: "He ain't got a thing, Al, and I don't see how he gets by." He still grasps so little about pitching at the big-league level that he can't understand how any pitcher can win without a fastball like his and another pitch or two of obvious contrasting sorts. He really can't understand how it's possible: (a) for him to lose a game, or (b) for most any other pitcher to win a game.

The other thing about the August 27 P.S. is . . . no, I've said too much already.


JACK HAS A LOT TO TELL AL ABOUT HIS RETURN
TO DETROIT. TO GET CAUGHT UP, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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