Minor league teams are "on the brink of financial catastrophe" and bipartisan lawmakers are stepping up to the plate
CBSN
The new Rocket City Trash Pandas were supposed to be last year's breakout team in Minor League Baseball. Then the pandemic hit and forced the cancellation of all games. For the Trash Pandas, that meant its new $50 million stadium would sit empty.
"2020 was a difficult time to start a brand new baseball team," said Lindsey Knupp, the team's vice president of marketing, promotions and entertainment. The organization lost millions, she said — as much as $17 million. "It was either shut the doors and close down and lay people off or come up with other creative ways to bring people here to the ballpark," said Knupp.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.