The Wax Pack: a Review

Up until my sixth grade summer there were a few things that were incredibly important to me: comic books, candy and soda. Maybe my computer too. But I had to rely on my parents to a. get me that computer and b. get me games and software to make it do cool stuff. The other three things were stuff that if I had a few bucks and my bike, I could go to the corner store and get without them. 

The summer of 1986 was a transformative few months for me. The Red Sox were really good that year and one star in particular captured the region's imagination like no athlete since a young Larry Bird. His name was Roger Clemens and beginning on that cold April night when he set a Major League record by striking out 20 Seattle Mariners, he was my guy. Even though I've lived in Massachusetts my entire life, on that night, the Red Sox really became my team. Up until then I liked baseball, but that was the summer that I fell head-over-heals in love with baseball. 

The cool thing about baseball--and sports in general--was that even in the mid 80s, you could find more and more information about the game everywhere. The newespapers had daily coverage of the Sox. Magazines had weekly coverage. Local sports anchors were LIVE! from Fenway Park practically every night the Sox were home previewing the game at 6:00 and recapping it at 11:00. Every game was on TV or the radio--there were even stations devoted specifically to sports! Not only that but the library had shelves and shelves of books devoted specifically to the sport. 

 

There was a lot of ways to get immersed in the sport, that summer I practically drowned in baseball. And I did it happily.  

But for a kid with a dollar or two in his pocket, baseball cards were the best way to find out about today's players and ultimately the game. The first baseball cards that I ever bought was a pack from Cumberland Farms, a convenience store only a short ride from my house in Amesbury, MA. Topps was my brand. I remember the electric blue wrapper, the way that word "BASEBALL" was in bright red and the yellow sunburst advertising a contest where the winner gets a free trip to Florida to check out next year's spring training*. 

Even before you got to the cards, you had the hard, pink gum. It tasted awful and it cut up the insides of your mouth, but what kid is going to throw away free gum? After you popped that stick in your mouth, it was time to rifle through the cards and see if you got one of your favorites. Most of the time you didn't--how many Roger Clemens did Topps make anyway--but even the commons (the non-star) players had their own dignity. It was though the commons that you learned about the game. 

* Did anyone ever find out whether someone won that trip? Topps never seemed to publicize it. That seems like something that they'd want to do. Alas. 

The above paragraphs were a very long walk to what I wanted to write about today. Writer Brad Balukjian and I are around the same age and it appears that his first card set was the same as mine too. He wrote a terrific book called "The Wax Pack" which revolves around him buying a pack of 1986 cards recently, going through the cards and then jumping in the car and tracking down the random assortment of players whose cardboard likenesses he had found. 

 

This book was made for people like me. 

From Randy Ready to Jamie Cocanower to Gary Templeton to Don Carmen to Rance Mulliniks and more, Balukjian tracked them down and was able to spend time and talk to the men that were once just names and statistics. Most of the players that he contacted were glad to be remembered. Cocanower* was particularly psyched to talk and invited Balukjian to his home to celebrate the Fourth of July with him and his family. 

* Despite playing less than a handful of years in the Bigs and with a team that was largely anonymous to me (the Milwaukee Brewers) and not having great number, when I was a kid, Jaime Cocanower left a big impression on me and my friends. It was the name. It just seemed so exotic and strange. Did he own cocaine or cocoa? Was his named pronounced JAY-me or HY-may? But we really just loved saying his name, it was so musical. Anyway this book answered a lot of the questions that I carried around with me about Jaime Cocanower. 

The pack isn't just filled with nice guys like the ones named above, but some legit stars like Carlton Fisk and Dwight Gooden didn't comply with repeated requests from Balukjian. And while they're mostly complete assholes, they all have their reasons. These are the chapters that I found fascinating because of how dogged, without being a jerk, Balukjian is about tracking these players down and how incredibly interesting how he writes about the misses. As a former reporter, I could completely sympathize with Balukjian when he wonders why someone like Vince Coleman or Gary Pettis won't return a phone call.

This book is mostly a memoir and Balukjian does a great job of weaving his backstory in with the stories of the ballplayers. There are a couple of clunkers here there--the story about approaching Fisk in Cooperstown is a bit cringe-y and I don't think that the reason why he and his girlfriend broke up is quite as significant as he teases it over the first few chapters--but at 260 plus pages, not every anecdote is going to be a home run. 
 

I know that the cliche says, "You can't judge a book by it's cover" but I did. I had a stack of books that I was going to read before this one, but this book's cover that looked exactly like the 1986 Topps wax pack wrapper and it jumped out at me. The cover filled me with a nostalgic warmth that I haven't felt in such a long time. I couldn't wait to read what this book was about and be transported back to being 11-years-old when discovering who was in a wax pack was my primary concern. As soon as I finished the book that I was currently reading, I immediately started reading this one. 

And I'm glad that I did, because The Wax Pack is an awesome read and it brought me back to 1986 when the men who played Major League Baseball were gods in polyester. In 2020, that's a special gift.

I was sent The Wax Pack free to review and comment on. This did not have any effect on my review.