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Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards (2010)

by Josh Wilker(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1934734160 (ISBN13: 9781934734162)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Seven Footer Press

review 1: Those of us who once treasured baseball cards as slivers of gold will feel instant, powerful resonance from Wilker's sharply accurate depiction of the insatiable hobby that took hold of waves of children and turned them into fiendishly obsessive, card-crazed consumers -- barters and traders in their own unique marketplace. Basking in the splendor of the glorious game we know as baseball (at least, in the pre-steroid/PED era), this all-too-familiar nostalgia trip offers hysterical commentary and thought-proving insight not only about the baseball card industry and the professional game to which it pays homage, but it offers us a charming glimpse of how we may view our world and how we come to identify ourselves in it.Any reader who appreciates a delicious narrative driven ... moreby candid, earnest expression will find Wilker's riotous and poignant journey to self-discovery and adulthood a masterpiece worthy of absorption. This one's a round tripper of the inside-the-park variety.
review 2: Engaging, if uneven, memoir of a guy about my age who spent the key years of his youth invested in collecting baseball cards. He uses those cards to tell his life story. For example, his own family life was highly dysfunctional, so he recounts how he longed wistfully for an All-American like Steve Garvey. Later, he discusses the difference between those who seize life and those who let it pass them by (a major theme in the book), by talking about the 1978 Topps Ivan DeJesus card, in which he is squaring to bunt; sluggers, he reasons, don’t bunt. The story of his own life isn’t all that interesting on its own; his struggles were mostly the mundane ones of fearing mediocrity or even failure. Other than his weird family structure, I didn’t see any real problems in these pages. So if I didn’t collect cards around the same time that he did (1975-1980/81), I doubt that I would have cared for this book. But I did, so I’ll probably read it again. At a minimum, I will take a much closer look at my 1977 set. less

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