Bill January 5, 2022 2 Comments

As I get to the end of the year, one thing that really surprised me was that I didn’t get burned out. I was definitely burned out a work. A years long project at work that turned into a huge months long support effort was really crazy in the middle of the year. On top of that some other changes at work are definitely making it hard to not feel burned out there. Add to all that the monotony of being home all the time and not being able to get away from work. Sure doesn’t make me feel great.

But then there’s the hobby side of me. I think you could look at some of the trends and say that what I was going through at work effected my hobby life, but I’m not sure it did. I think I was working hard and not smart during those months. It will be a little bit of an effort not to slip back. But I think over the last several months I’ve trained myself into some good habits.

I’ll put my goals out there and review my goals for 2021 when I do the yearly post, but I will definitely be slowing down a bit in 2022.

The Monthly Numbers

The numbers just keep going up! I got another career high for a month. I’ll look at how I hit my yearly goals in a post later this month, but these last several months have been really awesome. The numbers on the graphs keep going up and it helps me keep going to get things out and make it keep going up.

In looking at how things came in, I don’t think December was as consistent as November was. It’s a little closer to how October ended up. There were a few really big days helped out a lot. I think that’s especially the case with the two short weeks at the end of the month. But I guess November had two holidays as well.

The main drivers were one day of thirteen returns, one day of nine returns and then three days of eight returns. Surprisingly the failure numbers were down again too.

The Heat Map look pretty regular at this point. This is definitely a side effect to sending out some other sports, especially hockey. If you think that 89-91 is the wheelhouse for baseball, you should see it for hockey, football and basketball.

All the sports were a little more evenly represented compared to the prior month in that area.  I had some good small little plateaus on the right (newer) side of the chart, but this might be one of my lesser months for the left, or older side of the chart.

This might be the most gradual map I’ve seen in a while from top to bottom. I went through two or three months where the top one or two teams just killed all the others. Then last month there were what seemed like a couple plateaus at the top levels. But this time it feels like a nice gradual downward trend, at least in look.

New York is again up to the top, but there’s a lot more small-ish markets up there this time: Milwuakee/Green Bay, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Montreal, etc.. I love to see how this changes from month to month but I am excited to see what it ends up like for the year.

Wow – St. Louis! I really didn’t feel like I got that many Cardinals cards, but the data don’t lie! (Ha Ha – Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics). The Rangers, Brewers and Orioles always seem to make it up there from time to time. It’s also good to see some football in there with the Bears and Bucs. I did get a lot of football returns this month.

Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):

• St. Louis Cardinals – 16
• Texas Rangers – 16
• Milwaukee Brewers – 15
• Baltimore Orioles – 13
• New York Yankees – 13
• Philadelphia Phillies – 12
• Montreal Expos – 11
• Chicago Bears – 10
• Pittsburgh Pirates – 10
• California/Los Angeles Angels, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Tied with 9

Getting Trendy

This time you can see a little more of a difference between the last two months. Now that I look back at it. In February I was having some great months and those bars look so absolutely small compared to the numbers not. But in the end, those failure bars didn’t really do much at all. I think I’ve said this in previous months but I think that has to do with the work I’m putting in at the front end.

We’ll probably look at this more in the yearly recap later.

Another great month with a lot of color. I’m always surprised to see how these change. I really didn’t feel like football was dominating both basketball and hockey. It’s actually more than half of baseball, that’s maybe even more surprising. I was thinking that I wish I had more numbers in the middle months for the other sports, but really I only have so many cards to send. Maybe they would be more spread out, but honestly I’m running out of hockey to send.

November had 401 cards come back and I didn’t make that total at all. I won’t say that’s disappointing though. I think I’m just getting to the point with what I’m attempting that it’s players that I just have less cards for in general.

The Overall Numbers

In December I had 115 returns, five failures and in the successful returns 364 cards came back. Not to shabby at all. While there was a lull in the middle of the year I don’t think I could be happier with where the year ended up.

As for the Year-over-Year perspective, I had 109% more returns in 2021 than in December of 2020. That ended up contributing to 51% more returns for the whole year. As far as the cards go, my monthly total for December was 86% more than what I got back for the same month last year. That’s also a 54% higher number for the year than I had in 2020. We’ll look at more numbers in the yearly post later on.

He’s Making a List

There were only four stragglers in December. Nothing crazy really at all. The funny one is Dallas Braden because I actually sent to him twice this year and I got them both back on the same day. The other return was lesser, but not a straggler by any means.

Here the list of anything 200 days or more:

• Joe Cirella – 272
• Dallas Braden – 269
• Brent Lillibridge – 219
• Craig Counsell – 205

As for my favorites list: Dallas Braden (x2), Milt Thompson, Scott McGregor, Jim Harbaugh, Mark Moseley, Bill Ranford, Graham Gano, Craig Counsell, Bobby Valentine, Ed Wojna, Rick Upchurch, Mark Thurmond, Al Fitzmorris, Larry Christenson, and Roy Gerela.

I hope you had a great end to the year and things start out great in 2022!