There’s been some exciting times in my household these days. My oldest is a senior and they had to get their college applications in by November 1. Amazing we’ve heard back from a couple schools. We almost missed them too.
I was thinking they would be the old school letter and that’s it. But these days, just like all the mail these colleges send it’s very much filled with marketing. The letters come in big branded envelopes with folders and they are all trying to get you to make that decision and pay as soon as you can. We almost threw them in the regular pile because of how they looked though. Now we know to look a little closer at those mailers coming from the schools they applied to.
But since I have a theater kid and they are talking about majoring in that, there’s a second part to the process… the audition. They’ve already auditioned for one school and still have to schedule the others. They school they auditioned for said they are in, but they still need to get the regular acceptance too. I think we’re going to try to get them to one of those “cattle call” auditions as well.
Exciting, and at the same time stressful, times in our house to say the least. Add that to trying to keep up with work and school productions that are in full swing too and there’s a lot going on.
Hope you are all doing well out there!
The Monthly Numbers
It wasn’t the best month of the year by any means, but October 2022 was definitely a comeback month for me. There was a downward trend that started in July. It was just slight to start and then September too a big dip. Maybe there was nowhere to go but up last month. Whatever it was, I’ll take it.
I actually had one of the best days of the year last month. As you can see below, eleven returns on the eleventh was a pretty big day. It was almost of a doubling of my next best day of the month. I think a holiday helped that out, like it usually does. But that day definitely helped carrry the month toward being more successful.
There were a few more failures over recent months too. September only saw two failures. Four isn’t too bad at all though.
There are some interesting spikes on the “Heat Map” for last month. 1988, 1990 and 1992-’93 were clearly drivers in baseball. I’ve been seeing a lot more toward 1993 in recent months, but the big difference is that there are spikes… plural. Usually that’s more of a mound or one large spike. Not this time though.
There was a pretty good spread for baseball other wise. The other sports sort of sit where they always sit but the gray for basketball is still back and you can see more of that toward the later side of that chart.
Philly was having some success in real life and in my TTMs as well. That’s a city that doesn’t always bubble to the top like this. Toronto has had some strong months but that one feels a bit out of the blue as well. The pattern is definitely a bit more gradual than in recent months, at least until it gets down into the Boston/New England spot.
So you can see how the Blue Jays, Phillies, Brewers and Pirates drove those cities up toward the top. Baseball teams can usually do that single-handedly because I’m sending out mostly baseball. But I always like when a football team shows up on the list… no matter where it shows up. The Vikings just snuck into the Top 10 as they were part of that four-way tie for eighth.
Here are the Top 10 individual teams for the month (by cards returned):
- Toronto Blue Jays – 20
- Philadelphia Phillies – 19
- Milwaukee Brewers – 15
- Pittsburgh Pirates – 14
- Detroit Tigers – 10
- Los Angeles Dodgers – 10
- St. Louis Cardinals – 9
- Four tied with 7 – Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers
Getting Trendy
While September was the worst month of this year so far, and October was a bit of a comeback, when you look at everything together there is some consistency. If you take out January and March, the variance between each month is really not that much. January really can be explained in that it was still based on things that went out last year. March on the other hand was still some of those leftovers. But even if you counted that it’s not too terribly different.
The failure numbers are always so small that the spread between high and low is never that much. And those little orange bars don’t look too different from each other in the end.
Basketball came back a bit in September and that continued into October. It was a a bit higher level too. As you might expect based on the overall totals, all of those other sports improved. But baseball did take a slight hit. But like most things for last month, it was still within the realm of consistency.
How am I going to keep those lines moving in the right direction for the rest of the year? Well, the guaranteed way is to send more out. But I’m not going to do that. I’ve maintained a really consistent rate of getting things out so my plan is to continue that. I’ve really just got to keep planning well and cross my fingers for some good numbers.
The Overall Numbers
Last month I had 74 returns with four failures. Those returns had 267 cards in them. All those were a jump up, some more than others. But it was definitely nice to see and I could really feel it was a better month overall.
From a Year-Over-Year perspective I was still down compared to October 2021, just like in September. That’s going to continue through the rest of the year. I was 31% down compared to last year in both returns and cards.
At this point I am still seeing myself as over the pace from last year, but I’ve slowed down a lot and will continue to do so. I think November is going to be when I got into a negative pace compared to last year. I am only 12% up in returns and 5% up in cards compared to this time last year. But if you look at the final numbers I am just 14% off the total of returns and 19% off the total of cards. But just based on pace, I’m not going to make it back there.
I’m really not trying to match it, but its hard not to look at.
He’s Making a List
October saw it share of stragglers, but in the end it wasn’t anything too bad – not in total and not in days. Jerry Garvin and Matt Treanor were the only ones over a year out and there were seven total stragglers. Not too bad. Unlike some previous months, there weren’t any failure stragglers.
Here the list of anything 200 days or more:
- Jerry Garvin – 606
- Matt Treanor – 486
- Lance Broadway – 361
- Larry Bowa – 356
- Kevin Tapani – 343
- Bob Zupcic – 246
- Ricky Horton – 230
October saw a slight bump in paid returns. Well, percentage wise if was doubled, but it was only two more. Here’s the full list:
- Camilo Pascual – $10 – 1 card
- Elliott Maddox – $20 – 4 cards
- Ralph Garr – $20 – 4 cards
- Dan Petry – $20 – 4 cards
I doubled the failures too, so here’s what those were:
- Daniel Descalso – Return to Sender, I think I just took a flyer on an old address
- Kelly Gruber – Return to Sender, This was definitely an old address and I recent
- Phil Plantier – Return to Sender, This was similar to Descalso and a flyer on an address
- Tyler Clippard – Return to Sender, The team sent this one back after having it for a while.
I hope things are going well – many happy returns!