Man, I’m getting old.
A couple weeks ago I was doing some yard work and screwed up my back a little bit. I feel like there’s nothing that can make you feel like your old like back problems. I don’t know what I did to it but it was definitely the worst I’ve ever experienced with my back. Usually it’s just dealing with stiffness after a few hours of work and that’s it, but not this time.
I did some yardwork on a Sunday and didn’t feel to well. The next couple days were tough but I thought it was getting better… then the Chewy box came to the house.
I don’t know whether it was cat litter or cat food, but I should have been more thoughtful about how I picked up the box. I did it with all back and a little twist and I was right back to square one with the problems. But I also did it while I was in a meeting on the phone for work. That was a little awkward as I made a sounds while on the phone… gotta use that mute!
It’s now a few weeks later and while lingering, I’m feeling much better. But back problems, plus a little hip issue, none of it feel good and its all a reminder (like all of the others, ahem, like gray hair) that I’m pretty much an old man.
Thankfully TTM success helps me get positive! Hope you all had another great month!
The Monthly Numbers
March worked out pretty darn well. It turned out to be really consistent overall and I pulled in another 100+ successes. I really didn’t think I’d be doing that gain this year, especially after the way February went. I think if I could get around 18-25 returns a week that pace would be good based on what I’m sending out. I think think that would net me around 80-100 returns for a month with some fluctuation for good and bad months.
In the end I think I had eight days in March that I didn’t get anything (that include Sundays) and that match February. But then again, February had three less days. But on top of that it wasn’t just consistent, it was consistently good with one day of ten, two days of eight, three days of seven, one day of six and three days of five. Of the 23 days that I got something in, eleven of them were at least five returns.
The Heat Map looks pretty normal again, but I said last month that we’d probably see the left side stretch out a bit and it did. There’s a dip into the 60’s which definitely isn’t normal for me. Also, the baseball part of those peaks is really stretched out between 1986 and 1993. There’s actually a good chunk of 1992. I’m expecting that left side to continue to dip into the 60’s for April. Also, the gray area for basketball really stretches out too.
“Big City, Big City” – Operation Ivy
Those big cities are really killing it this time around. Chicago, New York and San Francisco are really owning the top part of the City chart this time around. After that it gets a bit gradual. New York actually missed the top 10 in February so it came back in a big way.
While I am a Mets fan and I try to collect them in general, that’s not necessarily what drives my autograph collecting. So while you’d think that that they might, the Mets don’t often appear a the top of this list like they did this month. That said, it would always be what I want to see. They really killed it this month though, beating the second place Tigers by five. And there’s not even a sniff of another sport at the top of the list.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- New York Mets – 19
- Detroit Tigers – 14
- Minnesota Twins – 12
- Texas Rangers – 12
- Chicago White Sox – 11
- Cleveland Indians – 11
- Kansas City Royals – 11
- Milwaukee Brewers – 11
- San Francisco Giants – 11
- Three tied with 10 – Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles/California Angels, Oakland Athletics
Getting Trendy
This trend is having it’s ups and downs isn’t it? I was back to a really good month though with 101 successful returns. And I only added three failures to that as well. It’s nice to see when some research pays off. Like I was talking about earlier, I think this should probably be the high end of what I expect on a monthly basis for this year if I keep up at my current request pace. I think it’s more likely to be between 80-90 returns though. But overall, that is a darn good jump back up.
While the other sports are never going to be close to baseball, I’m actually a little surprised they even look like this right now. I do try to diversify still, but not at the same rate I was last year. But look at basketball for March. Even if I tried to spread out through the sports I didn’t think basketball would top football. It might have in the past once or twice. But I think I’m running out of it a little bit.
As you might expect, when the returns go up the cards coming back should go up. It was not at the same ratio as January was, but it still was a really good month with 320 cards coming back in the successful returns.
The Overall Numbers
For March overall I had 101 successful returns and three failures. After a 40% drop in February, this was a 33% increase. That’s a pretty big swing back and forth. Is this going to be a year like a pendulum? I hope not. The cards back wasn’t a big a swing, but still a really great increase.
As far as how it compares to years prior, this March beats them all. Last year was pretty good with 77 returns but I beat that by 33%. Similarly with the card totals, but that was only a 15% increase. I think if you look at my pace I’m at about 30% of what I had overall last year. That’s ahead of pace, but I think that keeps heading downward and will look a lot different towards the end of the year. Still I’m turning out better than I was at the same time last year.
He’s Making a List
I think with the way that I’ve been sending out in recent months I’ve cut down on the stragglers. Or at least I haven’t been getting many stragglers. That said, they were out there a little bit in March. It wasn’t that far away from the February data. I think in February they were all consistently around the same, but this time there was more of a variance of what was over what I normally look at from a minimum days out perspective.
Here the list of anything 200 days or more:
- Kyle Freeland – 765
- Pete Schourek – 627
- Chris Perez – 414
- John Wathan – 386
- Terry Jorgensen – 225
In February I included a list of the TTMs I paid for and I think I’ll do that again:
- Kevin Elster – $10 – 5 cards
- Clay Carroll – $20 – 4 cards
- Al Oliver – $20 – 2 cards
- Davey Johnson – $20 – 3 cards
- John Mayberry – $20 – 4 cards
I hope things are going well – many happy returns!