‘We have people from Japan, Germany, Ireland, England and Italy that would wear it tomorrow if we got it to them.’
A minor-league baseball team looking ahead to its first game in 2020 is already forecasting a shortfall of team merchandise.
Ralph Nelson, the managing partner of the Rocket City Trash Pandas, credits a memorable name, interesting logos, and people around the world with ties to the area for the recent show of support.
“The name has gone viral,” he said.
According to Nelson, the team introduced itself to the Madison, Alabama community with an event on Saturday at Dublin Park. Even with nearly $100,000 in team gear, he said ahead of the event that he was worried it would not be enough.
WAFF reported that the team sold about $40,000 worth of merchandise in just the first 90 minutes of Saturday’s event.
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“We bought probably three or four times the merchandise than I thought we were going to buy or budgeted for,” he explained.
Faced with a “fanatical” response to the unveiling, however, Nelson sees the potential need for a bigger budget.
“Everybody and their brother is writing that they want merchandise,” he said.
As for the name, a Lacey’s Spring resident nominated the trash panda — a playful term for raccoon — and the news quickly spread beyond the region.
