Author’s Note
Prologue
1. Warming Up
2. Happy Meals
3. Yeager Bombs
4. Camp Templeton
5. Houston, We Have a Problem
6. Ready Is Ready
7. Carman’s Cradle
8. The Battery
9. Chasing Carlton
10. Leader of the Pack
11. Vincent van Gone
12. Is It September Yet?
13. Nobody Home
14. Gone Fishing
15. Catching Carlton
16. Captain Comeback
17. Straight Outta Compton
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Brad Balukjian is an entomologist and is faculty in the Natural History and Sustainability Program at Merritt College. He is also a freelance writer who has published in Rolling Stone, Slate, National Geographic, and other publications. He lives in Oakland, California, with his VCR.
“A wonderful journey that opens into an exploration of sports,
nostalgia, American culture, and memory, The Wax Pack will surprise
and engage you. It’s a delight to read and a tribute to the power
of curiosity.”—Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief and The
Library Book
“What if a pack of baseball cards could come to life? It sounds
like a Spielberg movie plot, except it happened. It happened
because Brad Balukjian made it happen, in real life, with the most
eclectic cast of baseball characters ever assembled. And the result
is one of the most fun, honest, funny, human, and uniquely creative
baseball books of the year. I’ll admit it. I loved The Wax
Pack!”—Jayson Stark, senior baseball writer for The
Athletic
“The Wax Pack is one of the most interesting and pleasing
baseball-themed books I have read in quite some time. An original
idea, brought to fruition with graceful prose, a sense of humor,
empathy, and insight.”—Bob Costas
"Baseball cards were a wonderful and memorable part of my
childhood. Balukjian brought a random pack of cards to life. Such a
unique way to tell a fascinating story."—Tim Kurkjian
“Poignant and powerful. . . . Balukjian covers more than ten
thousand miles to track down the stories of fourteen men from
a single pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards, learning a lot about
their lives—and his own. Hop in the backseat and join him for the
journey.”—Tyler Kepner, national baseball writer for the New York
Times and best-selling author of K: A History of Baseball in Ten
Pitches
“As pleasing as the pink slab of bubble gum that, long ago, came
with baseball cards inside five cent packets, this slender volume
gives fresh flavor to the familiar phrase ‘inside
baseball.’”—George F. Will
“What a weird, quirky, fun read. There have been 50,000 books
written on Major League Baseball, but Brad Balukjian’s The Wax Pack
is a uniquely romantic love letter to a game, a time period, and
its random soldiers. Well done.”—Jeff Pearlman, author of Football
for a Buck
“The Wax Pack is the perfect synthesis of what makes baseball (and
baseball cards) compelling, combining the thrill of discovery, the
reassurance of shared memory, and poignant metaphors for life.
Balukjian’s cross-country, cardboard-based bildungsroman reminds us
that baseball’s best stories are sometimes told by and about
players who’ve long since left the league.”—Ben Lindbergh,
best-selling author of The MVP Machine and The Only Rule Is It Has
to Work
“Brad Balukjian’s book is for all those little kids with cardboard
heroes who turned into big kids and started wondering, ‘Hey, what
if there’s more to life than just the cardboard?’ Turns out, there
is.”—Rob Neyer, author of Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball
Game
“A journey of self-discovery by way of a pack of 1986 baseball
cards. In Brad’s emotional quest, he not only finds answers
but shares a snapshot of ballplayers who, like him, are trying to
make it through life’s many twists and turns.”—Shane Rawley, former
MLB pitcher
Ask a Question About this Product More... |