Josh Wilker has been experiencing breakout success with CARDBOARD GODS (photo by Abby Theuring)

CARDBOARD GODS by Josh Wilker (Seven Footer Press, April 2010, $24.95)
Thursday, May 13, Nike Store, 255 Elizabeth St., with bubblegum-blowing contest, 7:30
Monday, May 17, Book Revue, 313 New York Ave., Huntington, 7:00
Tuesday, May 18, Two Boots, Grand Central Terminal, 7:00
www.cardboardgods.net

Back in the 1990s, we spent many a late night at such dive bars as the International, the Idiot, and Rudy’s discussing life, literature, and sports with Josh Wilker, his older brother, Ian, and their inner circle of trusted friends. Josh has always been the most introspective of the crew, and he has now turned that penchant for self-examination into the compelling, extremely entertaining memoir CARDBOARD GODS: AN ALL-AMERICAN TALE TOLD THROUGH BASEBALL CARDS, adapted and expanded from his popular blog, which has been delighting readers since 2006.

In short chapters that begin with an image of a baseball card from his personal collection, Wilker relates his unusual, fascinating story growing up in Vermont in the 1970s with his brother, his mother, his father, and his mother’s lover, Tom, as well as his current life in Chicago with his wife, Abby. Wilker doesn’t just include such obvious Cardboard Gods as Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Nolan Ryan, and Rickey Henderson; in fact, it is most often the lesser-known mediocrities, from Rowland Office and Rudy Meoli to Carmen Fanzone and bubblegum-blowing champion Kurt Bevacqua, that bring out the best of his natural talent, finding some aspect of the player’s history or physical appearance to tie in with his life. Wilker gets most excited when talking about his beloved Boston Red Sox, but you don’t have to be a BoSox fan, or even know a thing about baseball, to be amazed by Wilker’s impressive skills as a chronicler of the ups and, mostly, downs of daily existence.

We caught up with Wilker via e-mail as he set out on his whirlwind book tour, which brings him to New York City and Long Island this week and next and then to Fenway Park for an event with the Spaceman himself, Cardboard God Bill Lee.

twi-ny: On your blog, you have described yourself as “socially anxious” and suffering from “self-mortification.” What’s it been like for you getting out in the world, meeting and greeting strangers and fans who either already know or are about to find out so much about your personal life?

Josh Wilker: I’ve only had one reading so far, and it was pretty low-key. Not exactly the Beatles at Shea Stadium. I did get a chance to talk to a few people who had been reading the blog, and that was fun because we just ended up talking about baseball cards. The anxiety comes during the lead-up to these things. Right now I’m getting ready to go off on a road trip to do several readings, and I’m getting nervous again, just like I was in the lead-up to the first reading. It definitely helps that I have the cards themselves to hide behind. I get nervous about being in any kind of a spotlight, but the spotlight is really on my old cards, not me, and even more importantly there’s really not much of a spotlight anyway. I realized this as I was walking to my first reading with a feeling in my stomach like I was going to be stripped naked in front of a packed stadium. I kept walking by all these people who weren’t going to my reading, who had no idea about my reading. All but a fraction of the population so tiny as to be nonexistent don’t know or care one iota about my book. I find this comforting, and also depressing.

twi-ny: You’ve been doing interviews and writing pieces for dozens of websites, including espn.com, GQ, and the Huffington Post, while also working on your next book, which again will meld childhood with baseball by taking on THE BAD NEWS BEARS. What’s your writing schedule like, since you also have a full-time job?

JW: That next project you mention is actually THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING, not THE BAD NEWS BEARS. (The difference? More Kelly Leak.) I was supposed to have a manuscript wrapped up by now but I had to get an extension because of the other writing you mention. It’s been hectic, especially with the paying job and the unpaying job of keeping up the chatter on my blog. I get up early every morning and get to it as soon as I can pry myself away from Howard Stern, and I go until I have to run for the train to work. I still find time, heroically, to practice my religion, which is glaze-eyed laziness borne atop sitcom reruns and huge piles of pasta washed down with beer.

twi-ny: You hold nothing back when writing about your family situation in Vermont back in the ’70s as well as today. How has your family reacted to the book’s powerful honesty?

JW: Everyone has given me the thumbs-up in one way or another. They have always been very supportive of me and of attempting to be creative and expressive in general. I think various parts of the book may not be exactly pleasant for one or another family member to relive. I think that they see that they are the heroes of the book. I hope so.

twi-ny: On May 17, you’ll be appearing at the forty-sixth vernal assemblage of the Blohards, a luncheon meeting of the Benevolent and Loyal Order of Honorable Ancient Red Sox Die Hard Sufferers of New York. What goes on behind those secretive closed doors? Is there such a thing in Chicago, where you now live, or do you root for the Sox in lonely obscurity?

JW: Ha! I really don’t know much about the Blohards, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Secret handshakes and planning to make Steve Guttenberg a star (again), hopefully, capped with a keg party and Ping-Pong. As for Chicago, I mostly do my rooting alone, which suits me, but in the 2004 playoffs I did learn of a bar that transplanted Red Sox fans had started gravitating to in droves. It had always been my dream to be in a screaming crowd if the Red Sox ever finally did it, and so I went to that bar and was able to flail around in a packed room with tears in my eyes for the moment of victory. I went back to the bar for a playoff game in 2007 (not the clincher) and it had devolved into a near-empty dump with a couple of decidedly anti–Red Sox grumblers leaning over their drinks.