These are some strange times we are living in. It’s hard to know how to interact with people in person, you feel trapped in your own home, work and home life are mixing more than ever as we work from home, and somehow the mail is becoming political. So with all that, it sure feels good to have a hobby.
I sometimes get too into things and burn myself out. I’m actually surprised that I haven’t done that with the blog but I’ve somehow been at that for three years now. And with all the increased effort of trying to get bigger TTM numbers I am letting it consume my time a bit more, but some how I am still going strong.
I was thinking about this when my daughter broke down a little bit last week. She’s done it a couple times over the last few months. I think I’ve let her be a bit sedentary through all this. She has been doing daily walks with a friend in our neighborhood, but she still needs to get out more. She needs a hobby that’s not on a device.
I have a few ideas, but most likely it will be tough to make anything stick. That’s especially so if I am the one suggesting it. But I have to make the effort for my own sanity if not her own.
But enough of my troubles, time to dig into the monthly numbers.
The Monthly Numbers
I think you can see from this months numbers a little of the struggle I’ve had with mail lately. The Mondays are a little bit higher than some of the other days. I always imagine that if I send things out pretty steadily (I don’t send out 30 on one day, I spread them out) that that should mean some consistency back. But check out those Mondays.
The thirteenth is the best example. I know which days I am supposed to get things and this month I didn’t get what I was supposed to get a few times, so that made the next day or so a big day. But the thirteenth was the most insane day I’ve had as two of my normal big days were combined into one. It also made for an empty day on the last day of the month which hit my total in the end.
There were some much bigger bumps toward the more recent end of the Heat Map this month. I feel like it’s made it feel like there’s a good bit of variety in the cards I’m getting back.
I think you can also see that even though I didn’t get much football, I did get a bunch in more recent years. That’s actually really strange because I really don’t have that much football to use from that era.
Of course Topps… but something that is new to the list is some orange for Pacific and Donruss. You almost can’t even see it though. Plus there’s a little oddity there for Signature Rookies.
Seattle had a killer month and I guess I might be getting to an #emeraldcity week again at some point. But I think I used some of these for that week so maybe that won’t happen. The other big mover on the board was Chicago. Chicago has actually taken the top spot for the year too. Other than that I would say Cincinnati is not normally at the top like that.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Seattle Mariners – 17
- Cleveland Indians – 11
- Houston Astros – 11
- Cincinnati Reds – 10
- Chicago Cubs – 8
- Detroit Tigers – 8
- Kansas City Royals – 8
- Pittsburgh Pirates – 8
- Two teams with 7
Getting Trendy
55 was another great month. It feels like a let down after last month in some ways, but it’s ties the second highest return total for a month I’ve had all year. I do think that the mail issues have impacted this a little bit. But of course I don’t have much evidence to actually back that up. Other than maybe the weirdness that’s been happening with returns.
All football and baseball this month, but really football almost barely registered. The baseball returns though are my best month for the year. I guess I’ve just been sending out less football in general. I don’t have two many new guys to send to for football so I’m getting into a lot of guys I’ve sent to already.
What was down however was the total cards that came back. This was my lowest total for the year by just a little bit. I think some of that is a that up and down of what I’ve been sending out. I thought I plan a bit more variety but I think I have a natural tendency to send attempts with more cards in them when I plan a new set of attempts. I might be sort of rolling to a lower card attempts somehow.
The Overall Numbers
55 returns and 155 was a pretty good month in one area and a down month in the other. I think though the overall feeling is based on how inconsistent the mail has felt lately. And that’s even with an 11 return day in the month.
From a Year-over-Year outlook I was 90% better in returns from last year and 44% better in the card total that came back. That’s crazy success right there, at least in my book. For the year I am 60 returns away from my total returns from last year. From a cards perspective I am about 150 cards under last year. With a super good month I could get really close to that by the end of August.
He’s Making a List
Some of my favorite returns for the month were John Olerud, Braylon Edwards, Stephen Gotkowski, Clint Hurdle, Jim Longborg, Jose Tabata, Doug Widell, Pokey Reese and Doug Dascenzo. But I think my favorite of the month is that I got Mike Cameron on a Seattle Mariners card. I think I was missing him on a Mariners card from all the teams he played for.
I did get a couple really long returns last month. Stephen Gostkowski was out for 1001 days! The other long ones were Sal Romano at 481 days (which was a Spring Training attempt from last year), and Doug Corbett who came back in 615 days. I also got a failure from Von Miller at 1047 days! That long just to return it, but I think I appreciate the effort when you don’t know if that was an important piece of memorabilia for someone even if its not signed.
I hope you had a great month of returns as well!