{"id":500475,"date":"2026-02-24T07:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T07:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/500475\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T07:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T07:17:08","slug":"rocket-city-trash-pandas-female-locker-room-construction-could-miss-mlb-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/500475\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket City Trash Pandas\u2019 female locker room construction could miss MLB deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">MADISON, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.waff.com\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WAFF<\/a>) &#8211; It\u2019s crunch time for construction at Toyota Field, as the Trash Pandas are the only team yet to comply with MLB standards. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Construction on a new locker room at Toyota Field may not be finished before the Rocket City Trash Pandas\u2019 Opening Day deadline set by Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">MLB requires all 120 minor league teams to have dedicated facilities for female umpires and coaches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To comply with the requirement, the City of Madison began construction in the latter half of 2025 on the roughly $7.5 million, one-story locker room located in left field. The facility will be reserved exclusively for female coaches and umpires.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">General Manager Garrett Fahrmann says construction crews have been working since then but are running behind schedule. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">MLB has already extended some grace in the past. The league first sent a memo several years ago about the need for private spaces for female coaches and just set the hard deadline in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fahrmann said he is not certain the locker room will be ready by Opening Day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people working out there. We\u2019ve had some great weather days, and we\u2019ve had some not-so-great weather days. But I know they\u2019re out there,\u201d Fahrmann said. \u201cThey\u2019re making a lot of noise, which means progress. And we\u2019re still shooting for that April 1st deadline that they were given. And we\u2019ll see how that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WAFF 48 reached out to MLB about possible consequences for missing the deadline but had not received a response as of this report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fahrmann said he does not expect a harsh penalty if the deadline is missed. He said the visitor\u2019s locker room would serve as an alternative until construction is complete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Opening Day is April 3.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@waff48news\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@waff48news\">Click Here to Subscribe on YouTube:<\/a> Watch the latest WAFF 48 news, sports &amp; weather videos on our YouTube channel!<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WAFF. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADISON, Ala. (WAFF) &#8211; It\u2019s crunch time for construction at Toyota Field, as the Trash Pandas are the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,251786,251787,251790,251789,591,251785,251783,85,251784,251788],"class_list":["post-500475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-female-coach-facilities","tag-female-umpire-facilities","tag-garrrett-fahrmann","tag-madison-alabama-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-minor-league","tag-rocket-city-trash-pandas-locker-room","tag-sports","tag-toyota-field-construction","tag-trash-pandas-opening-day-deadline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}