It was then that the Trash Pandas would face an unexpected and unprecedented hurdle – the COVID 19 pandemic. The Trash Pandas in Madison have been assigned to an eight-team organization called the Double-A South, along with Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville (Kodak, TN), Montgomery, Pensacola, Biloxi and Jackson (Pearl, Miss.) Major League Baseball has been restructured this year and is now calling the shots among minor leagues. Since that time the minor league baseball world has undergone a transformation. In December 2019, Rocket City announced that it had more than $2 million in merchandise sales in just over 13 months since announcing the Trash Panda brand. Others around the nation include the Lansing Lugnuts, Albuquerque Isotopes, Binghamton Rumble Ponies, the Montgomery Biscuits and the Columbia Fireflies. The team was following the minor league baseball trend of unusual names to capture the public’s attention. Solicitations were sought from the region and a winning name was selected – the Rocket City Trash Pandas. The team rapidly gained attention as the owners sought an identity and a brand. “That research along with the fact that this area is booming led to the decision to relocate to Madison.” They did research on cities that had baseball, lost the team and then came back with a team that was successful,” he said. “The owners began the search for a city to locate a minor league team. The ownership group involves roughly 80 investors, according to Garrett Fahrmann, executive vice president and general manager, who joined the organization in June 2019. The journey of Madison’s flirtation began in 2017 when BallCorps LLC purchased the Mobile Baybears, another Double-A team in the Southern League. Today, Madison boasts a population of more than 50,000. When the Huntsville Stars played its first season in the Southern League, Madison’s population was approximately 10,000. This time it would find a home in the fast-growing suburb of Madison. Minor league baseball would return to the area. The Huntsville Stars had a 29-year run before the energy of the organization faded and the team was relocated to Biloxi, Miss. It had been seven years since the Rocket City had a Double-A baseball team.
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