Best of SI: Baseball Cards Providing Entertainment During Quarantine

How the Internet Saved Trading Cards—And Why the Pandemic is Making Them Even More Popular.

At noon on April 27, Chris Justice did what he does at noon every weekday: He turned on a live camera feed and stood in front of a sealed box. The North Carolina resident rotated it for the audience, displaying each of its blank cardboard sides, a confirmation that there had been no tampering with the packaging. Then, in one smooth motion, he sliced it open and emptied its contents out onto the table: 10 plastic-wrapped boxes of Topps 2020 Gypsy Queen baseball cards. That’s 24 gleaming packs per box, eight cards per pack, 1,920 cards in total—and Justice was going to spend the afternoon with them.

His routine is part work and part treasure hunt, both personal ritual and public performance. Justice opens new cards each day—baseball, football, basketball, sometimes hockey, Topps, Upper Deck, Panini—and livestreams the whole affair on YouTube and Twitter, providing play-by-play that lends each afternoon its own cadence. With a specialty pack, Justice will flip slowly, lingering on the details of each card and identifying each player. For more usual fare, he’ll expertly scan a handful in a matter of seconds, pausing only to call out the choicest few.

The camera remains focused on his hands and what they hold—Justice is the narrator, and the only human presence, but the cards are the stars of the show. Some viewers have more than a casual interest: Before a “break,” as this is called, people can sign up to buy a selection of the cards that will be opened, usually all the players on a specific team. 

Click Here to read the rest of "How the Internet Created a Sports-Card Boom—and Why the Pandemic Is Fueling It," for FREE at Sports Illustrated!