I’m so excited because as I’m writing this I’m thinking about something planned for tomorrow… BAND PRACTICE!
My band hasn’t gotten together in a while. In the fall we did a little outdoor practice/barbeque but we just sort of jammed. At that point we hadn’t played a gig in seven months and it was just an acoustic thing. Now we’re all vaccinated and we’re going to kill it in my buddies basement, plugged in with the full set.
Some of us had to kind of re-learn everything. We basically have to build the setlist back up again. I’m hoping everything seems fresh and fun to us and not work to play the same stuff over and over again.
Our plan was to pick a few songs and essentially make a set list for practice. I think we’re just hoping that we don’t all get there and find out that we didn’t work on the same songs. I’m sure there will be some listening to the tracks before we get back into them. But we play mostly 90’s alternative so we aren’t talking about the hardest stuff in the world. The set list is things like Green Day, Better Than Ezra, STP, but then we go a bit 80’s with The Cure, and then a little classic rock with Tom Petty, and newer with Kings of Leon, Gorillaz, etc..
Hope you are doing something fun!
The Monthly Numbers
In my monthly review for April I mentioned that the numbers were continuing to trend down for May. Well, they did.
57 returns for April turned into 55 returns for May. When you look at the daily numbers it looks like there was one day that ended up saving everything. On May 10th I had ten returns, which itself is the best (if not, one of the best) days I’ve ever had. There were only two other days with at least five and two more days with at least four.
There some consistency there in the middle of the month, starting on the 10th and ending on the 22nd. But ultimately there are two many gaps before and after that.
So why is that? First, the mail problems I had in April carried over a bit but they did get better. Mondays are usually the issue where I might never get the mail I’m supposed to get. Second, I think I waited too long to adjust into the next big push I’m doing. I’ve been adjusting on the fly recently, but maybe too much and right now I’m into a new phase of attempts which hopefully improve things. I think lastly, I’ve started to send to some current players and coaches and those always take a bit longer (if they are successful at all.
Lately I would say that hockey has been adding to my ’90-’91spike. But I think this month it’s a little different. Sure it’s added on to the top of it, but I would say that it is the spike this month. I got more hockey for both 1990 and 1991 than I did anything else. Even baseball!
Two months ago Milwaukee just destroyed everywhere else. And then last month Los Angeles was at the top but the gap closed a bit. Well this month it was Dallas/Texas and the gap widened a bit. In all three of these last months the leading location was over 20 cards.
The big cities really aren’t going to go away too much. But Cleveland, Baltimore and Atlanta popped up at least close to the top.
So just like the Brewers a couple months ago, the Texas Rangers doubled up on second place. Then things are bunched up a lot after that as there are a ton with five at the end of the top 10. And some of those are basketball and hockey!
It’s not like I can plan this stuff. To be honest I don’t always see it coming either. I didn’t even realize that the Rangers were coming in at that rate. And considering returns were down again, it’s funny that they were that dominating.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Texas Rangers – 20
- Cleveland Indians – 11
- Baltimore Orioles – 9
- Chicago White Sox – 8
- Milwaukee Brewers – 8
- Oakland Athletics – 6
- Eight tied with 5 (Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Reds, Cavaliers, Astros, Mets, Flyers)
Getting Trendy
Blech!
I really don’t to spend time looking at this chart. I have to try to do something about those number. I kind of thought I was. But then again maybe if I didn’t do the extra work I’ve been doing latetly it would have gotten worse.
There were only two failures. Not bad at all because I think those were really just shots I took at what are probably old addresses.
While I’ve obviously had better months overall, I’m going to try to focus on a positive here. That hockey line is a lot higher than the other sports (except for baseball obviously). That’s at least making me happy. And I there was some pretty good meat to that line, as you’ll see in my favorites list later.
I think this chart shows where I was on my last phase of planning. I was at the dregs. Not that they are dregs of who I am sending to. It’s more that I try to send to guys that I have more cards of first if I can. So I think I’ve just been at the end of my last big stage of planning for too long. That means less cards and taking more chances on guys who might not sign.
The Overall Numbers
May was officially the worst month of the year and I hope it stays that way. I had 55 returns and 182 cards in those returns. Definitely a disappointing month.
When I look at my Year-over-Year numbers there definitely some more interesting stuff there. For the overall numbers I am about at 45% of what I did last year already. So with one more month to get halfway through the year I am still on a pace to beat last years numbers in both returns and cards. If I look at it from a pace perspective, I’m better than 35% better so far.
When I compare May 2021 to May 2020… IT’S EXACTLY THE SAME! Last year I got 55 returns and 182 cards too. What are the odds?! The difference is that to this point this year it’s my worst month and at the same point last year it was my best.
He’s Making a List
The stragglers were back up. There was definitely one (Orlando Hudson) that I didn’t necessarily write off yet (I don’t really have an official time I do that), but I didn’t think it was coming back. I took my number back up to 200 days to make my list this month since there was a good chunk.
Here the list:
- Orlando Hudson – 461
- Nate Odomes – 310
- Chip Lohmiller – 284
- Butch Hobson – 268
- Frank Catalanotto – 211
The failures were just attempts at bad addresses. James Campen and Dan Briggs I must have just had old information for. I don’t know if I have any new data to correct those and retry.
As for my favorites: Charlie Puleo, Mike Stanley, Cecil Cooper, Jim Kern, Dan Pasqua, Jeremy Roenick, David Nied, Scott Arniel, and Steve Cishek.
I hope you had a great month too!