"The Wax Pack is one of the most interesting and pleasing baseball-themed books I have read in quite some time. An original idea, brought to fruition with graceful prose, a sense of humor, empathy, and insight."
-Bob Costas

"A wonderful journey that opens into an exploration of sports, nostalgia, American culture, and memory, The Wax Pack will surprise and engage you. It’s a delight to read and a tribute to the power of curiosity.”
-Susan Orlean

"The players on your childhood baseball cards might as well be superheroes: young, handsome and strong, in colorful costumes, certain they will conquer the world. That is how we viewed them once, but in time they grow up – and so do we. What happens after the lights go out on those big stadiums? What becomes of them when they join the rest of us in the real world, and nobody puts their picture on cardboard anymore? In this poignant and powerful masterpiece, Brad Balukjian finds out. He covers more than 10,000 miles to track down the stories of 14 men from a single pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards, learning a lot about their lives – and his own. Hop in the backseat and join him for the journey."
-Tyler Kepner

"As pleasing as the pink slab of bubble gum that, long ago, came with baseball cards inside five cent packets, this slender volume gives fresh flavor to the familiar phrase 'inside baseball.'"
-George F. Will

"What a weird, quirky, fun read. There have been 50,000 books written on Major League Baseball, but Brad Balukjian's "The Wax Pack" is a uniquely romantic love letter to a game, a time period and its random soldiers. Well done."
-Jeff Pearlman