Team owner’s gesture is a big hit with Iowa Cubs employees
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(NewsNation Now) — Former Iowa Cubs owner Michael Gartner was swinging for the fences with his gift to team employees following the sale of the team. His gesture was a huge hit with his now former staff.
Gartner, 83, was chairman and principal owner of the team for 22 years. When the team’s sale was finalized Dec. 28, he called together all of the people who worked for the organization.
Gartner told the assembled staff that the envelopes he was handing them contained their new business cards. Instead, each staffer received a check worth $2,000 for each year they had worked for the minor league team.
“It was a combination of smiles, shakes and tears,” Alex Cohen, director of broadcasting for the team, told NewsNation Prime. “I mean, there are some people who have worked for the Iowa Cubs for 20, 30 years. That is life-changing money to them for just loyalty to the club.”
Gartner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former president of NBC News and editor of the Des Moines Register, purchased the Triple-A Chicago Cubs affiliate in 1999 and became known as a hands-on owner with a gentle hand.
“He was always there, but he was never overbearing,” Cohen said. “He was never the type of owner who would tell you what to do. He would always be supportive. He would always come up and ask if we needed anything.”
Cohen recalled that during the darkest days of the pandemic, the Cubs were one of the teams that didn’t furlough or let go of any employees.
“He made sure we were taken care of from a personal perspective and also with our jobs.”
That held true when Cohen was diagnosed in June of 2020 with COVID-19.
“The first call that I got when I was diagnosed was from Michael Gartner. He’s just that type of person. He cares about you, he cares about your family, he cares about your dog, he cares about everybody.”
And that caring extended to the end of Gartner’s term as owner.
“Michael Gartner is one of the more generous people I’ve ever met and that was kind of personified with that gesture,” Cohen said. “This is a gesture that — I’m not going to say it didn’t surprise me — but it’s something, if anybody would do it, Michael would do it.”
