The back of Josh Wilker’s card
Bats: R Throws: R
Acquired: Via expansion draft
Cried when hit by pitch in little league game, 5/23/76.
Received “Most Sarcastic” award at little league team’s year-end ceremony, 6/30/77
Scored basket for opponent of own 7th grade basketball squad, 2/11/80.
Committed 3 errors in 1 inning for Babe Ruth League team, 6/09/82.
Quit Babe Ruth League team, 6/10/82.
Drifted around Europe for two months after college, unable to get laid, 9/8/90 — 11/13/90.
Fell off cliff 10 seconds into mountain-biking career, 3/16/95.
Randomly punched in face outside International Bar, Manhattan, 2/12/98.
Fun Facts! Josh has a very limited sense of smell.
Fun Facts! Josh dislikes all fruit with the possible exception of the controversially ambiguous tomato.
Fun Facts! Josh is generally pretty punctual.
Fun Facts! Josh sometimes wakes in the middle of the night hyperventilating, terrified by thoughts of death.
Voted by peers in Lower Manhattan Liquor Clerks League most likely to get overwhelmed by youthful urban team of shoplifters, 1992. In same year, finished third in league voting for most likely to be wounded by gunfire.
Named to Kings County Depressive Freelance Proofreader League All-Rookie Squad, 1996
Led Northern New England League in ennui in both 1998 and 2000
Josh resides in Chicago, where he enjoys taking long aimless walks and visiting the public library.
Josh believes all is forgiven.
Cardboard Gods 
Hey Josh –
Just thought I’d drop you a note you may or may not find interesting regarding an old blog of yours:
http://cardboardgods.baseballtoaster.com/archives/684290.html
Particularly about Tim Jones,I thought I’d share with you – I live in Sacramento and am 36.. I love baseball, met my wife through baseball and all that good stuff.. I also own a trucking company and we happen to work for a company owned by Tim Jones’ brother. I have worked with Tim Jones for a minimum of 10 years. I’ve talked with him numerous times. The guy is an amazingly hard worker and I won’t bore you with what a really nice guy he is. Point of my writing you is this: I’m a huge Steelers fan since I was a little kid. Never liked the Pirates though. Today for the first time I see Tim on a job with a Steelers hat on and I give him some shit about being a frontrunner or something. He makes a comment about knowing half the old guys. So I ask what he means.. He sheepishly tells me about his time in the majors, and so on… This led me to google and to your blog.
I don’t care about the comments people left dude, or the jokes – I could care less some of the stuff was funny.. his hair is still longer.. but grey.. anyways, I was reading about how people wondered, or assumed or whatever – about how he might recal or ‘use’ his cup of coffee in the majors and all that. I just found it ironic personally – and I’ve kinda learned a little lesson in just how far from true those perceptions are from reality. And I get that its just internet banter and all that.. I’m not overanalyzing it – but for what it is, I thought it worth sharing with you.
Tim is absolutely the opposite. I never had any clue about his baseball past at all.. and he is a very proud man, deservedly so in my opinion. But he is far from living in his past.
As a footnote, his nephew is the totally awesome award-winning and record setting snowboarder Kevin Jones just in case you wanted to know, and how could you not?
Thanks for your time,
Chris
Hey Chris, Thanks a lot for passing that along. I’m always really interested to hear from people who know the actual human beings behind the guys I saw as a kid (and still see in many ways) as gods, and this may have been the best real-life portrait yet. Tim Jones sounds like a real stand-up guy. Thanks again for taking the time to tell me about it. I’m going to paste your comment into the comments on the Tim Jones entry on this site (that entry was moved here along with all the others from the location you found it in). Oh yeah: congrats on the Steelers.
Josh,
I read your humorless elaboration about one of my husband’s baseball cards. It is a shame that you can’t seem to be creative enough to find fictitious people to insult. I saw that you took a stab at the “Bird”. My husband said he had a wonderful sense of humor. I believe you failed to mention anything positive which seems to be your MO.
Karen B.
I can’t take these comments any longer.
Josh didn’t mention anything positive??? This WHOLE SITE is a giant love letter to the heroes of Josh’s (and my) youth! This whole site is a big, wet kiss to players who were around thirty years ago! The one who really comes off bad in this site is Josh himself! Look at how he describes himself– he paints himself as outright pathetic almost all of the time! I’m sorry the fan mail and endless adulation has stopped once the career ends, but if somebody thinks this site is some sort of mockery of athletes, you are very much mistaken. Josh is almost intolerably kind, in my opinion, to these guys who chased a ball around in their youth.
Christ almighty, I have new respect for the sportswriters who have to deal with these lunk-headed jocks.
I apologize for the rant– it’s mine alone, not Josh’s– but this growing thread of complaining about marginal player’s accomplishments is really ridiculous.
sb1902, you’re as big, if not bigger, of a wanker than your friend Josh is. I can only imagine the two of you sitting around in your boxer shorts eating coco puffs trying to think of how to insult former players through witty blogging. Intolerably kind? You must be joking. Josh rips athletes whom he’s never met to shreds and one can only hope their friends and families never stumble upon this site. Josh, move out of your mom’s basement and find a hobby.
“Fun Facts! Josh is generally pretty punctual.”
Unlike his brother.
Josh is just a user. He uses people to promote himself. I know quite a few of the players he has mentioned and none of them respect Josh.
Hey Josh, not sure if this is the place to post an “I love the book, and am so glad I found this blog” comment, but I love the book, and am so glad I found this blog! For the last couple of years, a buddy of mine and I have been using that new technology called text messaging to throw out obscure baseball names from the past, always trying to one-up one another. You are making us realize there is some reason we remember these names from the past. I will be getting him a copy of the book NOW. Thanks again.
Josh,
I’m 42, grew up in Southern Cal and still have my cards. Hey Man, LOVED the book, I didn’t know others out there like me existed!!! I will say my little league career was better. lol!! The California Angels used to train in my hometown of 3,000, Holtville, California in the late 60’s through the seventies before heading up to Palm Springs. My friends all had autographed balls signed by Nolan Ryan, Bostock, Tannana, Bonds and Baylor. If you check out Ball Four, the Pilots stopped off in Holtville!!Several of my friends were and still are huge Angel fans. For some reason, I didn’t care much for them and chose to root for the Dodgers. Anyway, I’m glad I found your book and this site!!
sb1902- you and Josh are seriously pathetic! (tsuhuang) Says it perfectly, except neither you or Josh are witty. Unfortunately for you, there’s not enough teeth (or balls) between the two of you to compete with the Jackass series!