Book Club

WE ASKED

Brad Balukjian ’02, who teaches biology at Merritt College, acommunity college in Oakland, California, where he is the director of itsNatural History and Sustainability Program, and who is now author of The Wax Pack (University of Nebraska Press) about what he learned fromchasing down all the players in a single pack of baseball cards from 1986.

On why his book is a tribute to risk-taking:

First of all, I’m not a sportswriter. So, would these guys even talk to me to begin with? I’m, like, cold-calling people, and trying to explain it fast enough so they don’t hang up on me, and then get them to actually participate.

And then, what if they all were boring, or what if they were busts? So, there’s that. There’s also the book that I had always envisioned—which I’m glad to say I was able to be faithful to—was ambitious and risky in the sense that it was not your traditional sports book. Most books in the genre of sports are biographies, or they’re about a particular team, or a particular season or athlete. And what I was trying to do was really this cross-genre book that went across memoir and travel and sports—baseball. And it’s not easy to pull that off, because it’s like how do you tell the story of these fourteen guys, and my own story at the same time, and not lose the reader?

I have one friend who—when I was in a moment of doubt—she said, “This book is inside of you, and it has to come out, no matter what,” and I think she was right.

On understanding your emotions:

It’s kind of a bit of a paradox that I struggled with, which is these guys that were treated badly, abused by their fathers, they actually, as I described it in one case, they’ll weaponize their anger. They use that anger toward their fathers and channeled it into aggression, which, in some ways, made them better athletes because they were able to have an outlet and channel that, and maybe make them sort of into these fierce, aggressive competitors. Now, to me, it’s both indulging your feelings and shutting them out. In some ways, they were immune to the underlying feelings, but they were sort of indulging in the surface-level feeling. I love when [former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher] Don Carman says, “When you feel angry, you’re just really feeling sorry for yourself,” which I thought is a great and very profound way to express what anger really is. It’s a radical form of self-pity. When I get angry now, I think about that.

I’ve always thought of fear—which is a big theme in the book—as sort of the most destructive force in the universe. Hate and anger, these are just like the faces of fear. And so, really the book is about…that to live a life that is not controlled by fear, you have to basically accept fear—don’t fight the fear. It’s sort of counterintuitive; I know for me growing up, going to Duke, I was always told by my parents and everyone, “Rely on your brain. Your brain is your best friend. Your brain is what’s going to get you ahead in life,” and that’s all true. But what they don’t tell you is that there’s a lot of noise in there. And so, once you learn to accept that you can’t control what pops into your brain—you’re going to get all kinds of stuff—you can’t control what comes in, but you can control your reaction to it. I think that’s the key.

On being a fan now:

When the book starts out, these are the guys that were my heroes as a kid; these guys are these larger-than-life athletes. Now that I’ve taken this journey, they’re still my heroes, I’m still a fan, but it’s not because of anything to do with baseball. It’s because of their willingness and their courage to be vulnerable and to be open, and the things that I discovered on the trip about how much in common we all have with them.

I think also this concept has as much to do with me as with them. In other words, in order to see your heroes in this way, you have to be open and self-aware yourself. And there may be some fans out there that are not so open about themselves, and not as self-aware, where they may not want to know. They may like that distance. It gives them security to know, I think, or to not know, in this case. As an adult, I don’t see any reason why I should put anyone on a pedestal because they hit a ball really far. That doesn’t impress me. What impresses me is that you can talk openly about your insecurities. That’s what I value.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

RECOMMENDATIONS from Ben Cohen '10

In Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks (HarperCollins), Cohen, a Wall Street Journal sports reporter, explores probability through stories of basketball, Shakespeare, the art world, Spotify, personal experiences, research, expert opinion, and more. Below, he offers a few books that inspired him.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

Simply the best sports book ever written. It made a whole bunch of kids obsessed with sports want to work in front offices. It made me want to be a writer. The incredible story, the oddball characters, the counterintuitive idea, the irresistible reporting, the killer sentences on every page—this book is why Michael Lewis is the master.

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

It’s a love story between two brilliant psychologists that also happens to be a mind-blowing page-turner. The degree of writing difficulty was so insanely high, but you would never know that when you read it. One of the authors of the original, seminal paper about the hot hand was the great Amos Tversky—the very same Amos Tversky who is the costar of this delightful book.

Boom Town by Sam Anderson

I’ve never had particularly strong feelings about Oklahoma City. And then I read this perfect book about Oklahoma City. Now I’m fascinated by Oklahoma City. The hilarious Sam Anderson’s history of the weirdest place in America told through the weirdest team in the NBA was an inspiring reminder of something Duke taught me: that basketball happens to be a wonderful excuse to explore the rest of the world.

By Duke Alumni & Faculty

Privilege (HarperCollins) by Mary Adkins ’04

John Adams Under Fire (Hanover Square Press) by Dan Abrams ’88 and David Fisher

Reclaiming Our Political Roots: Rethinking Church in Nationalist Times (Wipf and Stock) by Yohan Hwang M.T.S. ’12

From Here to Equality (The University of North Carolina Press) by William A. Darity Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of public policy, African and African American studies, and economics; and A. Kirsten Mullen

Modernizing Copyright Law for the Digital Age: Constitutional Foundations for Reform (Carolina Academic Press) by Randolph May ’68, J.D. ’71 and Seth Cooper

Dub – Finding Ceremony (Duke University Press) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs Ph.D. ’10

Just Like Us: The American Struggle to Understand Foreigners (Columbia University Press) by Thomas Borstelmann A.M. ’86, Ph.D. ’90

In the Waves: My Quest to Solve the Mystery of a Civil War Submarine (Dutton) by Rachel Lance Ph.D. ’16

City of Peace (Koehler Books) by Henry Brinton ’82

Autonomy: The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism (Duke University Press) by Nicholas Brown Ph.D. ’99

Anti-Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia (Duke University Press) by Leo T.S. Ching, associate professor of Japanese and East Asian cultural studies

Christianity and the Art of Wheelchair Maintenance (Wipf and Stock) by Stephen Faller M.Div. ’99

Hercules and the King of Portugal: Icons of Masculinity and Nation in Calderón’s Spain (University of Nebraska Press) by Dian Fox A.M. ’77, Ph.D. ’79