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

Josh Wilker

ISBN 10: 1934734160 / ISBN 13: 9781934734162

Published by Falls Media, 2010

About this Item

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.

Seller Inventory # CIN1934734160G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards
• Publisher: Falls Media
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1934734160
• ISBN 13: 9781934734162
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

JOSH WILKER writes about his life and childhood baseball cards at cardboardgods.net. He has an MFA in fiction writing from Vermont College and is a winner of the Howard Frank Mosher Prize for Short Fiction. He lives in Chicago.