2018 was another full year back in the saddle of the TTM game. Toward the end of the year I started to cut it close to averaging a successful return per day and I pulled it out. It seemed in those last couple weeks that things slowed down a bit, but somehow I made it.
There’s been some discussion on the Tweeters about how we all keep track of our TTMs. I’m a data guy so I really like to do it through a spreadsheet. I know I keep track of way to much but I really find it interesting when I get to go back and actually look at it. I think it actually helps me put a lot of my successes in to more perspective.
You’ll find some normal stuff below, but I hope you’ll also find something different in there. Maybe it will even inspire you to keep track of something new for your TTMs.
Taking It From The Top…
I’m not going to discuss my return rate. That would honestly probably be depressing. I took some chances this year that didn’t pay off. Some of those have officially not paid off (they’ve been returned) and some are pending (and will probably be forever that way). My overall return rate historically hovers somewhere around 50% with maybe 10% or so being failed returns (either something coming back unsigned or the USPS sending it back to me). I was in that neighborhood again this year.
I like to look at what was successful.
- Successful Returns: 370
- Total Cards Returned: 972
The summer of 2018 was awesome for TTMs apparently. I’m sure that has something to do with the rhythm I sent things out in. My best month for returns and cards coming back was June. I got 37 return envelopes in that month with 108 cards in those packages (last year my high for a month was 119). Other successful months came right after that in July (42 for 101) and August (34 for 101).
I would be that April being so low is a by-product of dedicating some serious work to Spring Training. Given how that went I don’t know how serious I’m going to take that this year. I think I’m going to try to limit myself a bit more.
TTM Aging – Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number
With all those TTMs out there, sent to all kinds of places like homes (55%), teams (37%), PO Boxes, schools and businesses – how long do they really take to get back? Well, of course I look at that like any good TTMer. First, the short side of things:
- 5 Days: Grant Jackson, Mat Latos, Johnny Grubb
- 6 Days: Greg W. Harris, Stan Williams, Gary Plummer, Perry Williams
I’ve had this feeling all year that it was taking longer in general to get things. Given that I say what day I put it in my mailbox (not the post office) I would think that delays by a day. Plus, I get paranoid and think the mailman has something against me. It is possible though that when it takes five days those could be ones I went direct to the post office for.
But what about the other side of the coin? What about the long returns (I know there was some talk about what the line is for a straggler)? Those I feel like have this interesting story behind them:
- 2968 Days: Rick Honeycutt
- 2740 Days: Shawn Green
- 492 Days: Ronda Rousey
- 387 Days: Dustin Ackley
Those aren’t my first 2500+ day returns. Last year Carlos Baerga was up there for me. To add to Shawn Green, he even signed a card that didn’t have him pictured on it.
The Cards That Came Back
Last year I looked at what year the cards were from, what brands they were from, and what specific sets they were from. Something I forgot to do last year was designate whether something was football or baseball. But considering how much more baseball I send out, I highly doubt football will make the Top 10.
There’s definitely a bit of a shift from what I got back last year. Most of what I have to send out is going to revolve around 1990. Last year that was the year that came back the most. This year overwhelmingly shifted to 1991. I would guess that’s because the majority of the football that I’ve sent out is from that year.
The other big change is that last year I didn’t have as many spikes in the 70’s. 1978 through 1980 really represented on this chart. The other thing I notice is that the late 00’s see a some volume as well. 2011 evened out and 2016 and 2017 took an upturn.
I think if you had to guess what card manufacturer shows up the most you would guess Topps. You’d be right. Fleer was second and that’s not what I would guess. I personally would have guessed Donruss. But I think this goes back again to football returns skewing those numbers and I have more Fleer football. The Pacific and Wild Card definitely show up because of football.
This is really where you can see how football impacted the returns. I’m really surprised given how many baseball successes I have that two football sets showed up in the Top 3.
What Else About These Cards
I told you I like to look at a lot of things with these returns. So what else do people sign with. Well, inscriptions, numbers and personalization. For inscriptions that could he a “HOF” inscription but I also count bible verses as an inscription. What I’ve noticed is that football player love to put their numbers on cards. And then you have the players that do combinations of those things. Here’s what it looks like for last year:
So you can see that most didn’t do anything for last year, but about 30% or so did something more than just their signature.
I also keep track of the color of pens and markers everyone uses. This is always going to sway to Blue and Black and that didn’t change this year. I am surprised though that red happened to sneak in front of Silver and Gold. Heck, even green got in front of or matched gold.
Another things I keep track of is what’s pictured on the card as far as the team and city they represent. In some ways you could guess that New York or Los Angeles where there are multiple teams in multiple sports would edge to the top. But I always fine some team that gets represented that I didn’t realize I was sending out so much of.
Yikes, how did I let so many Phillies into the mix. San Francisco and Chicago really represented well this past year as far as cities go. And I’ve been noticing completed pages for Rangers, Pirates and Indians in some of my sets so no wonder they are at top.
But Did These People Amount To Anything?
So after all that, what did any of these people accomplish that made you want to get their autograph?
The first accomplishment is that they made it onto cardboard. That’s pretty much the first and last requirement for me. But I also like to track plenty of other things. I try to track all of the awards and accomplishments of the people I get signatures for. That can be difficult to keep up with for the current players, but I do the best I can. Within the winners for championships I do count managers/head coaches people on a staff of a championship winner. Here’s what it looks like by sport:
- Baseball
- Golden Spikes Winner: 1
- College Baseball Hall of Famer: 1
- All Stars: 71 All-Stars who appeared in 155 All-Star Games
- Gold Gloves: 20 Gold Glove winners who won 67 total Gold Gloves awards
- Silver Sluggers: 17 Silver Slugger winners who won 37 total Silver Sluggers awards
- Rookies of the Year: 4
- MVPs: 2 MVP winners who won 3 MVPs
- Cy Young: 5 Cy Young winners who won 5 Cy Youngs
- Manager of the Year: 8 Manager of the Year winners who won 17 total Manager of the Year awards
- Pennant Winners: 86 Pennant winners who won 144 Pennants
- Championship Series MVPs: 5
- World Series Champs: 52 World Series champs who won 68 World Series
- World Series MVPs: 1
- Hall of Famers: 1
- Football
- Heisman Trophy Winner: 1 winner of 2 Heismans
- College National Champions: 13
- College Football Hall of Famers: 12
- Pro Bowlers: 51 Pro Bowlers with 164 total Pro Bowl selections
- Pro Bowl MVP: 1
- Rookie of the Year: 2 Offensive, 3 Defensive
- MVPs: 3 winners of 4 MVPs
- Player of the Years: 3 Defensive, 2 Offensive
- All-Pros: 41 All-Pros with 82 total All-Pro selections
- Super Bowl Appearances: 93 Super Bowl appearances
- Super Bowl Champs: 48 Super Bowl Champions
- Super Bowl MVPs: 3 winners with 7 Super Bowl MVPs
- All-Decade Teams: 1 70’s, 4 80’s, 2 90’s, 2 00’s
- Hall of Famers: 6
- Other Accolades/Sports:
- Wooden Award Winner: 1
- Olympic Medalists: 6 Medalists with 6 total Medals (2 Gold, 2 Silver, and 2 Bronze)
- MMA Champion: 1
- Golf Championships: 1 Major winner with 3 total Majors and 1 PGA Champion
So What Were My Favorites?
I’m going to look at favorites in two ways. First, I’m going to look at the score I gave it. But that doesn’t mean that it’s my favorite. Some autographs have a story behind them. Maybe it’s how you got it or who the person is to you. So I’m also going to list a few that mean a little more to me.
As for the high scorers, these all had an individual card in the return that scored high:
- 9
- 8.5
As for the ones that stood out as favorites for other reasons:
- Joe Montana – Who wouldn’t want to receive a return from one of the greatest QBs of all time?
- Walter Jones – I think I said this when it came in but whenever you can get a return with “HOF” on it you’ve got something special.
- Ron Guidry – As a New Yorker, even as a Met fan, I remember the Gator pretty well and saw him on TV a lot.
- Will Clark – I’d sent to Will before and this was my first return from him. So glad he signs these days.
- Al Hrabosky – Does it get better than the nickname “The Mad Hungarian?”
- Seung-Hwan Oh – I love this return because it’s in a different type of writing.
- John Kruk – I’ve always like John Kruk. He’s noting super special but I’ve always felt like he probably be a guy I’d want to sit and watch a game with.
- Fred Marion – I mean, red ink… ’nuff said.
What’s Next?
After all that’s said, I think it was a pretty good year. To make next year better I’m going to see what I can get into with some of my old basketball and hockey cards and expand into some other sports. On the blog side, I’m going to try to improve my monthly report posts a bit more. Hopefully I can make some time to do that.
I hope you all the enjoyed the blog for another year and continue to do so in 2019!