“Books on Deck” is using the time during a delayed start to the baseball season to showcase many of the great baseball books that are being released in the spring and summer of 2020. Next up is Brad Balukjian, who decided to open a random pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards and set out on a nationwide journey to find all the players inside. He calls his book, “The Wax Pack."
In the summer of 2015, Balukjian began in his native California and ended up on Long Island as he tracked down more than a dozen ex-baseball players over 11,348 miles in 30 states on a 48-day trip.
Many former Mets were included in Balukjian’s random pack of cards including Dwight Gooden, Lee Mazzilli and Vince Coleman, although Mazzilli was the only one that Balukjian was able to successfully track down. With Mazzilli came a heartwarming story.
“The day Mazzilli got drafted by the Mets, he was surprised and overjoyed. He sprinted all the way home from school so that he could tell his dad,” Balukjian said. “It’s juxtaposed with many different father-son relationships in the book that are very strained.”
Among the other players that Balukjian tracks down are Rick Sutcliffe, Rance Mulliniks, Garry Templeton and Don Carman. Templeton recalls his ousting from the Cardinals organization that stemmed from him defending himself against racist taunts at Busch Stadium. Templeton was suspended from the team and later traded to the Padres for Ozzie Smith.
Carman also pulls together a quote that can really describe our entire world right now. “I don’t get to write the script in life, I only get to respond.” Those words from Carman and the story of Templeton’s exit in St. Louis hold up very truly in today’s society.