Iowa Cubs owner hands out life-changing bonus checks

Michael Gartner, owner of the Iowa Cubs minor league baseball team summoned his employees to a staff meeting at Principal Park, the team’s stadium in Des Moines just three days before Christmas. The team's sale to a global sports and entertainment company had closed that day and Gartner told the employees he wanted to hand them out new business cards. But there were no business cards in the envelopes handed out. Instead, there 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. 

Until the sale closed on Thursday, Mr. Gartner, has been the majority owner of the club for 22 years. He said that employees who work in maintenance, accounting, marketing and other areas were handed out checks for $4,000 to $70,000. Alex Cohen, 33, who has been the team’s radio broadcaster since 2018 says, "My jaw dropped. It’s an industry where you work really hard, and sometimes you don’t get compensated like that." He described the checks as a "life-changing gesture" for some longtime staff members. 

He adds, "Seeing all the people who had been there for two decades, three decades, tears streaming down their faces, it was a very special, emotional day." Meanwhile, Mr. Gratner said on Saturday that sharing the proceeds from the sale "was the right thing to do." “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", he says. 

Source: The New York Times