Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 3 -- A surprise for Jack

Plus the real Charles Comiskey

We talked about the amazing career of the astounding Ty Cobb -- much of it still in the future as of the time of our story -- in Part 2 of You Know Me Al I, "The busher reaches the bigs."

"I ain't afraid of Cobb or none of them now, Al."

-- from Jack's letter of August 16

by Ken

Jack, now pitching in the Pacific Coast League, hadn't written to Al for two months prior to his last letter, dated July 20, in which he broke the news that he was engaged -- to another of the baseball groupies he falls for like, well, like a yokel from Bedford, Indiana (except that only a certain percentage of such yokels get engaged to their baseball Annies). Now almost another month has passed, and Jack has another surprise for Al.


FOR JACK'S LATEST BIG NEWS, 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

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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