Customer Reviews

Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards

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I should preface my review that I was a blogger alongside the author at [...] and I'm mentioned in the acknowledgments for the book. However, I bought the book myself.

When I tried to describe what Cardboard Gods was about to some friends, I had a hard time. It's a book that is not just read for pleasure, but it also takes you back in time in a way that even a history book can't do.

Cardboard Gods is, in a nutshell, one man's way of piecing together a narrative about his life (especially his childhood) using baseball cards. But that really doesn't do the book justice. The baseball cards are not just pictures of players from over 30 years ago. Instead, they are launching points to get the reader involved with the life of the author.

Wilker expertly weaves together the two threads about his life (growing up most of his life in Vermont with his mother and her boyfriend while his father lived in New York) and the baseball cards and players of the late 1970s.

For a book of a little over 240 pages, there is so much to learn. Even for someone who had a pretty good idea how Josh Wilker's story would come out, I was captivated by the story. It is a unique contribution to baseball literature. It is a valuable contribution to literature all together.

Baseball cards have been around forever - at least since the latter part of the 19th century - giving fans from all walks of life a tangible link to the players on display; from the frequently stiff and absurdly posed phony "action shots" on the front, to a statistical summary of the players' on field performance on the back. Holding the players "in the palm of your hand", or on display in protective card albums typically gives fans a wide range of emotions; from the warm fuzzy feeling we have for our personal heroes to the sheer disdain we have for an enemy player, or one of marginal ability who seems to be in every new pack we buy, taunting us with their useless duplication.

Without a doubt, we're hooked on collecting these little "cardboard gods"; and the author of this book, Josh Wilker, has paid a personal tribute to many of the cards he collected as a kid from the mid '70s - early '80s, with a wonderful narrative that is well-written, at times humorous, and at times quite poignant, as he relives the memories - some good, some not so good - that each card evokes.

From Bake McBride to Thurman Munson; from Jim Rice to Rickey Henderson; each story is told with refreshing candor and eloquence as Wilker rehashes various events from his rather difficult and mundane childhood; always, it's the memories which are attached directly to his personal collection. For every memory the author shares, the reader will more than likely relive their own personal anecdotes that are directly related to that particular card. As an avid collector for many years, I have most of the cards the author shares, including the 1980 Rickey Henderson rookie card, which by chance, seemed to be the most common card that came in the batch of "random" cards I purchased. I'm sure the folks at Topps had no idea this guy was going to be the best leadoff hitter in baseball history when they doled them out to buyers in time for the '80 season.

Whether you're a big baseball fan or simply interested in American pop culture, you'll more than likely find this "All-American Tale" a fascinating, compelling, and highly enlightening journey through Josh Wilker's childhood. It's quite a story and one that I highly recommend reading for yourself.

They were gods. Of course. Why didn't I think of that? Unattainable. Above all. Beside all. Surrounding all. They permeated my life.

From his love of Yastrzemski to his views askew at Rowland Office, Carmen Fanzone, et al, Josh Wilkers has written a marvel of a book that hit home for me.

My era was 1967 through 1975; my cards wound up elsewhere. Not because my mother tossed them, but because in a few fits of perceived adult behavior I threw a bunch away and later sold a batch at a moving sale to an old woman who signed her Social Security check over to me. On occasion, my gods scream to me from their grubby graves, and some return via eBay.

As for some reviewers who point out that this book is not for kids, I argue that it is. With supervision. You don't protect kids from predatory adults by hiding their existence. This book would have thrilled me as a twelve to fifteen year old and it would have opened my eyes to the very real potential of encountering bad people at a time when I could have used a lesson in that sort of reality. It would have given me a better grasp on the fact that adults are just older kids: good, bad, ugly.

Josh Wilkers' honesty is refreshing, his language considered but never forced, and his insights worthwhile. On the cover, Comedian David Cross jokes that even Canadians might enjoy this book - but probably not Mexicans. I would argue that most card-collecting baseball fans will enjoy this book, but probably not Yankees fans. The author's childish, inappropriate reaction to the untimely death of Thurman Munson was jarring and unexpected. Not the reaction, but the guts it took to share. Raw, real stuff.

Thanks, Josh. I'll be hanging around cardboardgods.net.

Couple of things right off the bat:
1) This is NOT a book about baseball cards or how to collect them or anything like that
2) This book is a memoir of the author
3) Recommended ages for this book 16+

With that out of the way...I've collected baseball cards for over 25 years now so when I saw this book and saw images of baseball cards from the 70's and 80's throughout the book I was excited. I thought "Here's a book that's going to talk about how collecting cards influenced the writer's life" or how it impacted his life in some amazing way and that each of the cards had some great significance. But...honestly I was left disappointed. Yes baseball card's were a major part of his life and was one of the ways the writer connected with his brother and at some points the cards did have an impact in his life. But, often times it felt like the card chosen was tacked on to the story and really had no bearing. Even worse this story was, I don't want to say boring, but it was depressing. It seems like he didn't really have any happy moments growing up. He was called names constantly, his family life was weird, he and his brother didn't always get along, and on and on. Even moments that should have been happy, such as going to a concert, become depressing because a) they didn't really know anything about the guy playing and b) they didn't realize that there was an act beforehand the main guy and left before he ever came on.

Honestly I wish I could have liked this book. I even tried picking it up on different days in hopes that I just wasn't in the right mindset when I started...but the feeling didn't change. The book, while well written, is just depressing to me. It is a creative way to tell a memoir, using baseball cards as the starting points for the chapters, but it just doesn't work for me. Perhaps it will for others though.

As a baseball fan who loved all those cards of my youth, and one who appreciates excellent non-fiction writing with a sense of humor, this book is in a class by itself. The concept of writing a book about one's life through baseball cards is incredibly original and flawlessly executed. I bonded with the characters in the book, the author's family, and grew worried how things would end up for the author.

Well done, Josh Wilker.

This is a great book for anyone who, as a kid, would collect baseball cards and examine their collection over and over again and escape into a different world that only they could understand. I loved this book because it was creative and unique and connected with me in a way no other book has in a long time. Pieces of Wilker's life story are ones we've all heard at one point or another, his delivery is what personalizes these stories and captivates the reader. Every time I put this book down, I would be drawn back to my memories of growing up with my baseball cards and looking at photos of players and imagine what that player's particular city was like and fantasize about how great life must be to be a baseball player. Wilker's chapter contrasting his impression as a child of Steve Garvey, based on the photos on his baseball card, to his un-athletic Father was brilliant. No chapter was a disappointment and each one probed me to read "just one more" before I went to sleep. This book is simply outstanding.

I quit collecting baseball cards about the time Josh Wilker started. I got back into it for awhile as a grad student, until I attended a fateful card show. As I entered the Holiday Inn, a card seller was explaining to a potential buyer that "you don't need to know anything about baseball. You just check the guides and see what the cards are worth. It's just a product." Not know anything about baseball? I fled such heresy forever, before it tarnished the care that had gone into building my beloved Topps 1973 complete set. But in this case, I must confess, a reader really doesn't need to know anything about baseball to appreciate this marvelous, poignant, sometimes heartbreaking Frank McCourt-esque* autobiography about coming of age in a tough time and place with only two certainties in life, a game and a brother's love. Like Pat Jordan's A False Spring or Willie Morris's The Courting of Marcus Dupree, this is a signal work of literature that shouldn't be marginalized because it hangs it hat on a game. Spread the word.

* The Irish author, not the Dodgers' owner

Josh Wilker's CARDBOARD GODS is a trip down memory lane for anyone who grew up in the 70s collecting baseball cards. The concept that Wilker follows is so simple its genius. He opens each chapter with the reproduction of a card and starts talking about what the card signaled to him as a kid growing up. Sometimes its baseball, other times its the stupid expression on a player's face (see Rowland Office). He evidences his card collecting chops by noting that superstars like Johnny Bench got a ultimate card number like 300. Each new chapter holds the anticipation of seeing an old friend. The only minor complaints are that the book at times has a blog feel to it, more disjointed than unified, and a crudeness that could have been lessened a bit.

I'll keep this brief...

Cardboard Gods is a must read for anyone who grew up during the 1970's. Many times I would take a break from reading to reflect on many things from my own life: collecting baseball cards, walking to the country store to buy a pack, running home and sitting down on the floor to trade with my older brother...(I wonder how Mr. Wilker knew my life?) My brother and I still share a wonderful relationship, and we still trade cards like we used to.

Don't just read this book, consume it, and then buy one for your brother, as I did. It will touch you both.

Thank you Mr. Wilker. Thank you.

Josh Wilker had a tough, challenging childhood. He grew up in a family with an unusual arrangement: a mother, a father, her mother's boyfriend, his brother. Notice something odd? Eventually, mom and boyfriend moved with the kids to Vermont to live an anti-establishment life, avoiding the 9-5 world. This was the 70's, when that inclination was acted on often enough. Not unexpectedly, this living arrangement resulted in difficulties growing up, as Josh and his brother Ian were branded hippies (and worse) by the other kids in their new small town.

Wilker goes back in time and relates significant episodes and periods in his youth and early adulthood to selected baseball cards that he accumulated in the 70's and 80's. He does a great job at identifying the uniqueness and oddities of each player and card, and connecting them to the specific life challenge or angst which he is sharing. I am a contemporary of Wilker's, more or less, and to me, my baseball cards were, mostly, just baseball cards. He's brought them back to life in a way that I never thought of. He makes me think of a Hank Aaron card that I have (1970, I believe), where Aaron is holding a baseball in his hands, almost as if he is peeling an orange - kind of an odd shot for the soon-to-become home run king.

The book is also the story about Wilker and his relationship with his older brother, Ian, with Josh always looking up to his older brother, wanting both his attention and to emulate him. The older one, however, provides only a portion of what the younger one needs. I get the impression that this is a common relationship drama between younger and older brothers separated by a few years; I've witnessed this more than once.

At times the story is difficult to stick with simply because the sense of the writer feeling like a loser is so strong. This is emphasized by the series of low level jobs and cheap apartments in which he and his brother held or lived in. I guess this says, however, that Wilker is a very good writer. That he is, although on occasion he is prone to rather poor analogies to get a point across.

If you are a baseball fan, and especially if you collected cards from the 70's, this book will trigger a lot of memories. It is also a book about growing up in and, eventually growing out of your birth family. Well worth reading.