They need the money more than we do.

Michael Gartner used to own the Iowa Cubs minor league baseball team. They closed on the sale of the team a few days after Christmas and he had a big surprise for the employees of the team.

According to a story in the New York Times,

83-year-old Michael Gartner called the employees together the same day the sale closed and told everyone he had their new business cards. He gave them envelopes and inside was NOT a set of new business cards.

He was a liar? Technically, maybe. But it was in service of a great thing...

...inside were checks worth $2,000 for every year each employee had worked for the team — $600,000 in total for the 23 full-time workers." (NYT)

Again, from the NYT -

A lot of those people have worked for us for over 20 years, and they’ve helped us build a successful team...They’re just fantastic people (and) They need the money more than we do. A lot of them still have mortgages and car payments and college payments.

Stack of 00 bills
Tomislav Forgo
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"They need the money more than we do." That's the second time in the last couple of years the Cub's owner has said that. When Covid shut down the 2020 season, the staff was not furloughed...

“We kept everybody on full pay and benefits the whole time. We lost $4 million, but they needed the money more than I did,” Gartner told the Des Moines Register. “To get ready for (Opening Day), I didn’t really have to do anything. I’ve got all these great people who work here.” (complex.com)

The Iowa Cubs has only had 3 owners since they became a team in 1969. For 53 years the team has been locally owned. It sounds like their last owner was their most caring owner.

Read the letter the owner wrote to the fans after the sale. 

As always, if you have a comment, complaint, or concern about something I wrote here, please let me know: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com

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