Ring W Lardner

Ring W. Lardner's 1921 satirical collection The Big Town follows nouveau riche Midwestern couple Tom and Ella Finch from their hometown of South Bend, Indiana, to New York City. Their goal? To "see life" and get Ella's sister Katie a husband. Far from a simple revolt from the village, the Finches' journey provides plenty of comic material for Lardner's sharp, satiric critique of the urban/rural divide in 1920s America.

This is an annotated and copiously illustrated edition of 24 baseball stories by Ring W. Lardner, including the six classic stories later collected as You Know Me Al. Two-thirds of the stories describe real teams, real players, and real situations, and the annotation and illustrations serve to identify the references of early twentieth-century major league baseball that Lardner covered as a reporter.