Cardboard Gods: An All-american Tale Told Through Baseball Cards by Josh Wilker (2010, Hardcover)

Key Details
Author:	Josh Wilker
Language:	English
Publisher:	Seven Footer Pr
Format:	Hardcover
ISBN-10:	1934734160
ISBN-13:	9781934734162

Size
Length:	243 pages
Thickness:	1.2 in
Weight:	24 oz

Publisher's Note
Cardboard Gods is the memoir of Josh Wilker, a brilliant writer who has marked the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. It also captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game. Along the way, as we get to know Josh, his family, and his friends, we also get Josh's classic observations about the central artifacts from his life: the baseball cards themselves. Josh writes about an imagined correspondence with his favorite player, Carl Yastrzemski; he uses the magical bubble-blowing powers of journeyman Kurt Bevacqua to shed light on the weakening of the powerful childhood bond with his older brother; he considers the doomed utopian back-to-the-land dreams of his hippie parents against the backdrop of inimitable 1970s baseball figures such as "Designated Pinch Runner" Herb Washington and Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. Cardboard Gods is more than just the story of a man who can't let go of his past, it's proof that--to paraphrase Jim Bouton--as children we grow up holding baseball cards but in the end we realize that it's really the other way around.

Industry Reviews
"In CARDBOARD GODS, Wilker plays his boyhood insecurities for some Woody Allen-esque laughs. More than that though, he finds droll universal truths and poignant reminders of transience in his beloved baseball cards."
(06/12/2010)