Bill April 1, 2020 3 Comments

March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb…

I think that’s the saying. Have you ever heard it? I can remember it from back in like elementary school maybe. I remember it being part of a theme of some calendar project I had to do back then. It’s funny how those memories stick with you.

This month was great! I actually got to the end of it and before I looked at the numbers I thought that I had a better month than February for returns (which seems like forever ago). But as it turns out, I matched last month for total returns. That just tells you how great February was in less days.

But back to the saying… what made me think of that was how I was sending out cards. I started the month just finishing off some extra Spring Training requests and I had a lot more going out. And then everything hit the fan and before the end of the month I stopped completely. As I said in some earlier posts, while I’d like to think I was looking out for people, I really just ran out of envelopes.

Let’s take a look at March!

The Monthly Numbers

I had some really great days this month with four days of six returns. I couldn’t believe it when they kept on coming. On top of that, I use the Informed Delivery and some days I would see one envelope and while that was great, there would be two or three in the mailbox. Jackpot!

I’m a little disappointed that I got only two active players returned from Spring Training. Everyone else was a coach. I even thought I had planned it a bit better with guys that I knew signed. I must have just hit them a tthe wrong time because I did see some of them signing… just not my cards.

The heat map is super baseball focused and I think it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. I’m happy with the spread across the late 70’s and 80’s but there are a ton of spikes for the late 80’s to mid 90’s of course.

I’m kind of surprised that with all the baseball there wasn’t some bigger Donruss and Upper Deck numbers there. I should know because I’m the one sending this stuff out. While I track it coming back I don’t going out so much.  I am trying to spread some of my planning for future requests that I’m doing right now to try to make sure I’m doing less duplication. Maybe that will help the bars other than Topps.

Chicago is a hell of a town, and it’s killing the rankings this month. The Cubs and the White Sox did a good job to put up some good numbers there. But Detroit was a Tigers town for this month in returns. That was all Tigers put up there. There wasn’t anything conscious about it either. Sometimes there is but I can’t necessarily plan them coming back. But I think overall it was a month for the big towns.

Here are the Top 10 by team for the month:

• Detroit Tigers – 21
• Chicago Cubs – 16
• Cleveland Indians – 14
• New York Mets – 12
• San Diego Padres – 11
• Houston Astros – 10
• Chicago White Sox – 9
• San Francisco Giants – 9
• California Angels – 8
• Oakland Athletics – 8

Getting Trendy

As you can see, March look a whole lot like February. It really wasn’t feeling that way as we went through the month. I could have sworn that I was killing February. But 53 successful returns matched it. I don’t know how the heck I forgot how great February.

Now as for total cards, that was crazy good. February was in the 170’s so it was already good. March said, “hold my beer.” I don’t drink so maybe it said, “hold my sweet tea.”

The Overall Numbers

53 successes that brought in 200 cards ON THE DOT! For the first two months of the year I’ve passed 150 returns (if only just barely at 151 and have over 500 cards back. From a year-over-year perspective that was a 25% better return rate than last March which was the second best month I had all of last year.

From a cards perspective I was 72% better than last year. Considering my best month last year was when I got back 165 cards, almost every month this year has surpassed that. In January I got back 162 so it’s not real far off. I’m now 200 cards better than I was last year at this time.

He’s Making a List

Among my favorites from this month are: Jim Walewander (who always sends great custom art cards), Raghib Ismail, Nat Jones (who you’ve already seen), Doug Jones, Doug Dascenzo, and John Olerud. There weren’t too many older returns. My longest was 524 days for George Frazier and then 392 days from Mike Minor.

Hope everyone else had a great month too!