BookClub WE ASKED
Brad Balukjian ’02, who teaches biology at Merritt College, a community college in Oakland, California, where he is the director of its Natural History and Sustainability Program, and who is now author of The Wax Pack (University of Nebraska Press) about what he learned from chasing down all the players in a single pack of baseball cards from 1986.
what anger really is. It’s a radical form of self-pity. When I get angry now, I think about that. First of all, I’m not a sportsI’ve always thought of fear—which is a big theme in the writer. So, would these guys even talk to me to begin with? book—as sort of the most destructive force in the universe. I’m, like, cold-calling people, and trying to explain it fast Hate and anger, these are just like the faces of fear. And so, realenough so they don’t hang up on me, and then get them to ly the book is about…that to live a life that is not controlled by actually participate. fear, you have to basically accept fear—don’t fight the fear. It’s And then, what if they all were boring, or what if they were sort of counterintuitive; I know for me growing up, going to busts? So, there’s that. There’s also the book that I had always Duke, I was always told by my parents and everyone, “Rely on envisioned—which I’m glad to say I was able to be faithful your brain. Your brain is your best friend. Your brain is what’s to—was ambitious and risky in the sense that it was not your going to get you ahead in life,” and that’s all true. But what XX. traditional sports book. Most books in the genre of sports are they don’t tell you is that there’s a lot of noise in there. And so, biographies, or they’re about a particular team, once you learn to accept that you can’t control or a particular season or athlete. And what I what pops into your brain—you’re going to was trying to do was really this cross-genre get all kinds of stuff—you can’t control what book that went across memoir and travel and comes in, but you can control your reaction to sports—baseball. And it’s not easy to pull that it. I think that’s the key. “When you off, because it’s like how do you tell the story feel angry, On being a fan now: of these fourteen guys, and my own story at When the book starts out, these are the guys the same time, and not lose the reader? you’re just that were my heroes as a kid; these guys are I have one friend who—when I was in a really feeling these larger-than-life athletes. Now that I’ve moment of doubt—she said, “This book is taken this journey, they’re still my heroes, I’m inside of you, and it has to come out, no matsorry still a fan, but it’s not because of anything to do ter what,” and I think she was right. for yourself.” with baseball. It’s because of their willingness On understanding your emotions: and their courage to be vulnerable and to be It’s kind of a bit of a paradox that I struggled open, and the things that I discovered on the with, which is these guys that were treated badly, abused by trip about how much in common we all have with them. their fathers, they actually, as I described it in one case, they’ll I think also this concept has as much to do with me as with weaponize their anger. They use that anger toward their fathem. In other words, in order to see your heroes in this way, thers and channeled it into aggression, which, in some ways, you have to be open and self-aware yourself. And there may be made them better athletes because they were able to have an some fans out there that are not so open about themselves, and outlet and channel that, and maybe make them sort of into not as self-aware, where they may not want to know. They may these fierce, aggressive competitors. Now, to me, it’s both inlike that distance. It gives them security to know, I think, or to dulging your feelings and shutting them out. In some ways, not know, in this case. As an adult, I don’t see any reason why they were immune to the underlying feelings, but they were I should put anyone on a pedestal because they hit a ball really sort of indulging in the surface-level feeling. I love when [forfar. That doesn’t impress me. What impresses me is that you mer Philadelphia Phillies pitcher] Don Carman says, “When can talk openly about your insecurities. That’s what I value. n you feel angry, you’re just really feeling sorry for yourself,” This interview has been edited and condensed. which I thought is a great and very profound way to express On why his book is a tribute to risk-taking:
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