Hobby Love During the Pandemic

With the lack of sports around, you'd think the popularity of the hobby would take a huge hit. I mean, who is going to want to drop a pile of cash on baseball cards when you can't even watch baseball, right? 

Turns out you're wrong, because the hobby is booming. Stuff is selling for crazy prices. I know a lot of people are claiming that's because of the Chicago Bulls documentary The Last Dance, which has basically been the biggest sports related thing to happen since the pandemic. I think The Last Dance is a symptom rather than the cause, just like the hobby booming is a symptom. 

The cause is nostalgia. The world sucks right now and people want to go back to a time when you could do basic things like buy groceries or watch baseball without worrying about getting sick. That nostalgia has propelled card prices and created interest in documentaries about former sports stars. Right now people want bygone eras to be not so bygone.

The pandemic won't last and neither will the hobby boom. That's fine. I actually prefer cards to be a bit cheaper, since it makes it way easier to actually participate in the hobby. If the pandemic drags out and it takes awhile to find a vaccine, then people's financial priorities will change because the global economy might not return quite to the state it was in before. 

Even if a vaccine is found soon, everyone is going to think twice about stuff you wouldn't have even thought about doing before, like attending a baseball game with tens of thousands of other people. Stadiums are dirty places; ever gone to the washroom at a major league ballpark? Yeah, there are going to be people that are not going to care about the pandemic and are going to head out to the first ball game they can. But there are going to be lots of others that wouldn't even consider it, and that changes sports.

I feel like right now without sports this is a romantic period for a lot of people, like a form of denial that the world may be irreversibly altered. You can live in a fantasy world where the most important thing is buying graded rookie cards of your childhood heroes. That fantasy world lets you ignore the truth that the world may be heading towards a global depression that it will take years to come back from. Or, everything will be fine. I don't know. No one does. That's the point. It is easier to live in a fantasy world than it is to face the unknown. The hobby is most definitely a fantasy world.

I've been collecting cards off and on since I was a kid. I'm 35. I'm from that generation that grew up on junk wax and lost interest in it as a teenager. I came back to it as an adult, although I've taken breaks from the hobby that have lasted up to a few years at a time. You get kinda tired of the greed, you know?

But like every other sports fan on the planet right now, I'm also feeling nostalgic. Despite all the nonsense surrounding the hobby, collecting cards actually is fun. I don't think we would collectively put up with the nonsensical greed the hobby creates if it wasn't inherently fun. And if we were all out simply to make money, there are easier ways than selling baseball cards. It's just that investing in your 401k doesn't seem quite as exciting. Well, maybe the stock market is just as exciting, but it doesn't have that veneer of nostalgia that the hobby has.

I'm from Toronto, but I moved to Quebec for work last year. I'm still working through the pandemic, as an essential front line services person. It's been awful and to find something joyful at home is important. We all need to enjoy the small things in life. Despite the big dollars always circulating, the hobby is a small thing. I enjoy the hobby. That's why this is The Hobby Love.