You always have to keep it fair for your kids right? This time of year that usually means making sure Christmas presents are somewhat even. That can be harder sometimes because maybe its a year where someone is due to get something a little bigger or something like that.
Maybe more importantly though is trying to recognize them for things they have going on or things they did. I have one really outgoing kid and one really quiet kid. That means it’s easier to give the outgoing kid recognition because they are doing things a lot. I always try to make sure my little introvert gets some recognition for what they have going on too.
There are two people in my family that are really great at that… one is my Aunt and the other is my brother. I noticed it recently at a dinner where my brother made sure to ask what my youngest had going on. Of course, it kind of pains her two answer (or it seems to) because she doesn’t like to talk, but it’s still all a good thing.
So how am I tying this into my monthly review? Well, this is a time of year with a lot of reviews… reviewing December, reviewing the year, #mybestnine. All of those are going to come out over the next week or two (crossing my fingers I can make that happen). So for that reason, I’m going to try to make sure to give December its due. I’m going to do the best I can to not get into a yearly review in this post when I plan to cover that in others.
That might have all been a stretch… but come on, I need an intro and there’s going to be a lot of them needed in the next couple weeks.
Hope you are all doing well out there!
The Monthly Numbers
December 2022 really kept a good thing going. I was on an upward trend that continued last month and ended up being one of the stronger months I had overall this year. It was a bigger month in a few different ways that I’ll get into below.
December 5th was my really big day for the month. In the first half of the month it felt a little bit all-or-nothing. That one day was really carrying me and I saw a bunch of failures not just the first day but over the first few days of the month. Then the second half of the month was a pretty good almost every day. I had 13 days with four or more returns and and nine of those came after the middle of the month.
The “Heat Map” seemed to go back to more of a classic formation to me. And it didn’t really matter the sport. 1990 was big for all of the sport and created that big peak that I always used to see. It is funny that there’s a dip for 1989 cards right next to it though. Well, a relative dip because there’s still a good total for that year. But a lot of the extremes either appear lower. I don’t think the highest numbers are that much higher than I’ve seen in the past.
Last month Chicago put up what I thought was a crazy total. Well, Baltimore said, anything you can do I can do. Not necessarily better, but B-more matched Chi-town’s November numbers with 35 returns. And when you think. Milwaukee was second with some pretty good numbers and then after that it sort of eases downward.
Milwaukee had the Bucks and the Brewers contribute to the total. But Baltimore is all O’s. The Orioles put a hurtin’ on every town, let alone team. I think the surprise of the month is the Reds. They never seem to really make it high in this list and they come in at #6 for December.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Baltimore Orioles – 35
- Milwaukee Brewers – 21
- Texas Rangers – 18
- Cleveland Indians – 13
- Seattle Mariners – 13
- Cincinnati Reds – 11
- Atlanta Braves – 10
- Montreal Expos – 10
- New York Yankees – 10
- Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays – Tied with 8
Getting Trendy
The trend had been going in the right direction and December happily kept that going. I was a little worried to start the month that it wouldn’t. I’m actually hoping this bodes well for the start of the new year. But as strong as it was for successes, it was as strong for failures too.
Football was back… hockey not so much… basketball was still strong but not quite as strong as the November numbers.
The cards that came back was a pretty strong number too. I haven’t looked at all these and compared them to previous years, but I think while you see some ups and downs, I think this is probably more consistency than I’ve seen in previous years… at least if you ignore January.
The Overall Numbers
89 success (#3), 7 failure (tied #2), 300 cards (#4)
In December 2022 I had 84 returns (#3 month for the year), seven failures (tied for the second highest month of the year), and 300 cards that came back (the #4 month for the year). All not bad. Well, I don’t want all the failures, but in the grand scheme I don’t think that number is terrible.
From a Year-Over-Year perspective I was down compared to December 2021 because I had stepped it up so much at the end of last year. This year I was down 23% in returns from the same time last year and I was downs 18% in cards. Considering where I am for the month compared to other months this year, that kind of tells you how crazy the end of last year was.
The one preview I will give you for the year is that I was wondering about my pace at the end of November. I was looking at being over on returns and cards. I ended up with more returns but less cards compared to last year.
He’s Making a List
December was a bigger month for returns. As you saw above, it started right off the bat with three on the first day of the month. There were some pretty extreme ones. However, what I find most interesting is that I had two guys return two attempts around the same time with one of those scenarios coming back on the same day. Mike Munchak and Dave Johnson are both on the list twice below. Dave is interesting because his first attempt came back second.
Here the list of anything 200 days or more:
- Mike Munchak – 1145
- Roger Mason – 820
- Oddibe McDowell – 758
- Pat Listach – 560
- Mike Kingery – 534
- Rick Dempsey – 528
- Colby Lewis – 503
- John L. Williams – 473
- Dave Johnson – 449
- Mike Munchak – 366
- Tom Niedenfuer – 357 (failure)
- Bryan Harvey – 325
- Dave Johnson – 271
- Mark Tinordi – 231
- Chuck Porter – 216
- Ryan Church – 203
- Dennis Rasmussen – 203
I’ve been including a list of paid returns in recent months, but this month I didn’t receive any paid returns back. I’ve sent out less recently though so that didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
Lastly, the failures are below. It was interesting that it was a higher failure month and a good number of them were longer than the standard failure time if the address was just wrong, even for RTSs. The Tom Niedenfuer was interesting because it was all of his stuff coming in on one day.
- Arthur Rhodes – RTS from the Cleburne Railroaders after 85 days
- Russ Morman – RTS from a PO Box
- Winston Garland – RTS, I think I’ve failed a couple times on him
- Max Venable – RTS, I tried the wrong address and then retired successfully
- Sammy Winder – Charges $20
- Tom Niedenfuer – Charges $15 and I got back two on the same day via JD Legends Promotions
I hope things are going well – many happy returns!