Patience pays off!

I'm looking at making another big push soon on some of the ones I have left.  I'll buy some of the unsigned cards I'm lacking via SportLots in November and start getting to writing to finish out the year. I'll have a large lot of postage coming next week.

In the meantime, a few more have rolled in since my last update here. It's a slow trickle really, but a couple of them were long waits which has gotten me excited again to send more out. Plus a few friends of mine have started mailing with cards I gave them and had some successes from Tatu, Wes McLeod, Preki, and Hector Marinaro. And of course, I'm seeing successes from various boards I post on.  So it's time for a big push here, I think; see if I can at least get a couple more big needs knocked out.

I've gotten a few back over the past few months: Jimmy McGeough, John Hamel, Brad Smith, Denny Vaninger, and Dick McCormick all came back pretty quickly (two months or less). Vaninger and McCormick each took two tries. Vaninger's MYSA address didn't work but his home did. The Seattle Sounders are following in the footsteps of their American Football counterpart Seahawks and not accepting fan mail-- even for coaches of their youth organizations. Fortunately McCormick's home address worked for me after they returned their "Not Signing" note.

Two lengthy ones that I feared were gone came back in the last month.  I sent to Ron Fearon in the UK and got it back with a California postmark (and US postage added over the UK stamp). He also added a short note on an index card. It took a year, but after thinking it was gone, it was great to get it-- huge sigh of relief there! I had forgotten that the 1990-91 Wichita All-Stars card was in there signed by Borja. It'll go to Dale Ervine next, and then to Victor Moreland to finish it off.

The second long-awaited return came from my second batch of mailings since I started the project. My first group was sent on September 5 and 7 of 2015. Of those, I'm still waiting on seven of the 32 that didn't get RTS'ed. The second batch went out on October 6 and I got 23 of 27 back-- a much-improved rate. Let's up that to 24/27 now as Andy Chapman's four cards found their way into my inbox yesterday after a brief 744-day trip (two years and 13 days, for those counting at home).

So, to update the tracker a bit...

TRIED, NO LUCK
Beto, David Hoggan, Brian Quinn, Erik Rasmussen, Mark Frederickson, Steve Kinsey, Dennis Mepham (zero for two), Scoop Stanisic, Nenad Zigante, Kai Haaskivi, Preki, Paul Wright, Jim Gabarra, Kevin Hundelt, Pasquale Deluca, Greg Ion, Iain Fraser, Desmond Armstrong, Waad Hirmez, Victor Nogueira, Joe Papaleo, Gregg Willin, Wes Wade, Ted Krafft, Mike Brady, Poli Garcia, Marcelo Carrera, Bobby Joe Esposito, Hugo Perez, Juli Veee, Ed Anibal, John Klein, Arturo Velazco, Keder, Frank Klopas, Greg Muhr, Angelo Panzetta, Chris Simon, Danny Pena

NOT YET TRIED
Mark Kerlin, Heinz Wirtz, Dale Mitchell, Carl Valentine, David Byrne, Frank Rasmussen, Chris Hundelt, Bill Crook, Bobo Lucic, Damir Haramina, Joey Kirk, Claudio De Oliveira, Stan Terlecki, Brian Schmetzer, Omar Gomez, Chris Haywood, Eloy Salgado, Rick Snyder

HAD SUCCESS, NEED TO SEND AGAIN
Steve Zungul (with correct address this time), George Fernandez (one success, one non-return), Cris Vacarro, Scott Manning, Dali, Pato Margetic, Chico Moreira, Michael King, Bernie James, Mike Sweeney, Kia, Zoran Karic, George Fernandez, Kevin Crow, Kim Roentved, Bruce Savage, Jan Goossens

NEED TO TRY AGAIN WITH NEW ADDRESS
Beto, Preki, Brian Quinn, Scoop Stanisic, Nenad Zigante, Paul Wright, Jim Gabarra, Mark Frederickson, Majid Jay, Paul Peschisolido, Mark Moser, Terry Rowe

Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to trade for a few somewhere along the line.

Sad news as well from the Dallas area: as I'm sure many/most/all have heard by now, we're going to be without a team in the 2017-18 season.  Plans right now are to re-open in time for the 2018-19 season. So unfortunately, there will be no Alumni game this year for me. Better hit the mailing hard then, I guess.