Try free for 30 days

  • Cardboard Gods

  • An All-American Tale Told through Baseball Cards
  • By: Josh Wilker
  • Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
  • Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
Cardboard Gods cover art

Cardboard Gods

By: Josh Wilker
Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $24.34

Buy Now for $24.34

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

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.

©2010 Josh Wilker (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews

“Josh Wilker writes as beautifully about baseball and life as anyone ever has.” (Rob Neyer, ESPN)
“Cardboard Gods is more than just a book. It is something that I lived and live still. I was the older brother. I live on Route 14 like Josh once did. My two sons were those boys in the picture, VW bus and all. Cardboard Gods awakened feelings in me that I have long suppressed. It is a growth book, like Catcher in the Rye. People, especially people who love baseball, will carry this book with them everywhere.” (Bill Lee, bestselling author of The Wrong Stuff, Red Sox legend, baseball bat entrepreneur)

What listeners say about Cardboard Gods

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.