Latest news with #BrandonBailey
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
Watch out for scams when getting your Star ID
ALABAMA (WHNT) — The May 7th date is looming for fliers. That's the date TSA will start asking for a real ID or 'Star ID' if you're in Alabama. Trooper Brandon Bailey with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said this form of identification creates a safer, more secure way for people to fly. 'We can securely identify who you say you are when you get on these planes and try to cut down and make traveling a safer experience for everybody,' he said. Alabama Attorney General announces lawsuit against TikTok, ByteDance Inc. Although millions across Alabama are scrambling to get the ID, you'd rather get caught waiting in line than lose your identity to a scam. 'You've got to have multiple forms of ID for this, said Karen Reeves. 'That's why it does open us up for identity theft. So if we were to go to a bogus website and put all this information in, someone would have everything they needed, you know, for identity theft.' That's why the Better Business Bureau of North Alabama is warning people against scammers offering an easy 'order online option.' 'It is federally required that you show up in person to get a star ID, and that comes back to just simply so we can identify, we can lay hands on those documents and we can scan them in and so we can certify them,' said Bailey. While you should make it a priority to get the real ID if you plan to fly in the near future, it's key to know who and where to give your information. 'Scammers always want you to feel a sense of urgency, so I would just say take a few minutes, think about it, go to the actual the DMV website, and it's going to give you all the information there,' Reeves website has all the required documents to get your Star ID, including where you can make an appointment. You can click here to go to the ALEA website. The TSA website lists how you can fly without a Star ID. You can click here to go to the TSA website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Richland School Board approves athletic agreement, tentative comprehensive plan
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – The Richland School District board unanimously approved the district's tentative comprehensive plan at Monday's meeting, as well as an in-kind athletic agreement with Pennsylvania Highlands Community College. The new plan, which is now pending a 28-day public review period, will be in place until 2028 once finalized. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, these guiding documents must be submitted every three years to the state secretary of education for approval. 'A lot of it is data-driven,' Richland Director of Educational Services Brandon Bailey said. He led the development of the framework along with a team made up of administrators, teachers, community members and parents. Bailey said that more than 20 people contributed to the plan and that creating the document was done throughout several months. A draft version of Richland's plan attached to Monday's agenda noted the district's strengths, such as meeting specific Future Ready PA Index goals; challenges, including the need to improve assessment scores in areas such as seventh- through 12th-grade science and biology; and career readiness plans. The document also details equity considerations, goals and more frameworks for the district. Bailey told the board that 'a lot went into' the plan and said the implementation of new state science, technology and engineering, environmental literacy and sustainability standards will be a focus of the next three years. The group also accepted an in-kind agreement with Penn Highlands for use of athletic facilities. Richland Athletic Director Tim Ripple said a similar partnership was in place with East Hills Recreation when it was located at the community college and is beneficial to the district. He said junior high wrestlers and junior high track team members go to Penn Highlands to make use of the gymnasiums there, and Penn Highlands often uses Richland's softball complex. '(They've) been great to work with,' Ripple said. He added that everyone is in need of extra facilities sometimes.
New York Times
12-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Baseball's 2020 club: Five years ago they realized a dream, but no one was there to see it
The proof of Brandon Bailey's big-league career can be found inside his parents' house in the Denver suburbs. The jersey worn in his debut with the Houston Astros on July 26, 2020, hangs on a wall. The baseballs thrown for two of his four strikeouts reside in a safe. He did not collect many other keepsakes from his five appearances in Major League Baseball, all of them played inside empty ballparks with artificial crowd noise in between daily testing for COVID-19. 'If I could do it all over,' Bailey said, 'I would have asked almost every last one of my teammates to sign something.' Advertisement Three years after that strange, anxious summer, Bailey called home. His arm had just betrayed him again. His joy for baseball was tapped. He broke down as he spoke. 'That was the one thing that was probably the hardest part for me when I decided to retire,' Bailey said one afternoon this spring, a couple weeks before the fifth anniversary of MLB shutting down spring training as the virus spread across the country. 'Telling my parents I'm just so sorry that I couldn't get back, to give them that experience to watch me play. I think that's why I kept hanging on and I kept fighting. My parents never got to see me play in a major-league stadium.' Can you live out your dream if there's no one there to see it? In the summer of 2020, amid a pandemic that eventually resulted in more than a million deaths in the United States, MLB played a season condensed and distorted by the virus. The regular season lasted 60 games. There were no crowds. Players were punished for postgame carousing. The days formed a blur of surgical masks, nasal swabs and social distancing. The year tested the patience and the discipline of the veterans while presenting a funhouse mirror of big-league life to newcomers. There were 212 rookies who debuted in 2020. For some, the shortened year offered a prelude to future greatness. Tarik Skubal made his first start. Garrett Crochet notched his first strikeout. Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit his first home run. For others, though, the Covid season represented the entirety of their big-league time. A group of 24 players only appeared in 2020. Many, like Bailey, have stopped playing, undone by the accumulation of injuries and ineffectiveness. He has wondered about reaching out to some of his brethren, the precious few big leaguers who never really experienced the big leagues. Advertisement 'There can't be many of us, right' said Rob Kaminsky, a veteran of five appearances for the 2020 St. Louis Cardinals. 'It's kind of like a forgotten season,' said Ben Braymer, who pitched in three games for the Washington Nationals. 'It's almost like a season that has an asterisk next to it,' Bailey said. 'It happened. But not the way it was supposed to.' The 2020-only club could grow smaller this season. A handful remain in search of another moment in the sun, this one with a proper setting and soundtrack. The best chance belongs to Kyle Hart, a member of the 2020 Boston Red Sox, who signed a big-league deal with San Diego after a standout 2024 campaign in the Korean Baseball Organization. 'I feel like it will be almost a second debut for me, so to speak,' Hart said. Hart's actual debut occurred on Aug. 13, 2020. He struggled to produce adrenaline in the vacated confines of Fenway Park. He felt like he was going through the motions during a spring training game — except he was facing elite competition with a scant margin for error. 'The actual game felt like we were practicing,' Hart said. 'With no one there, it felt like a scrimmage game or something.' Braymer and the Nationals visited Boston a couple of weeks after Hart's arrival. Braymer felt his heart hammering as he jogged in from the bullpen. The abnormality of the scene still stuck with him. 'I'm running into the game and there's probably 200 cardboard cutouts in the stands,' Braymer said. ''Sweet Caroline' is still on the speakers, but instead of there being fans, it's like pumped-in fake crowd noise. So that was funny, and also just, like, 'Wow. I can't believe that's the reality of it.'' During his time in Washington's minor-league system, Braymer had anticipated the chance to enjoy the trappings of the major-league life. He looked forward to hanging with the veterans in the clubhouse, playing cards on the team plane, joining the other rookies for the traditional pregame coffee run at Wrigley Field. None of that was permitted in 2020. Players have said they mostly just sat in their rooms playing video games. Advertisement At times that summer, even going outside felt unsafe. About a month after he debuted in August for the Seattle Mariners, Joey Gerber looked outside his hotel room in San Francisco and saw an orange sky, the result of wildfires plaguing the Pacific Northwest. The smoke followed the club home. 'We had a game in Seattle where it was like the worst air quality in the world that game, and it was like, 'Yeah, we're still going to play,'' Gerber said. 'I was like, 'Oh my gosh — what's the equivalent of cigarettes I just smoked?'' Gerber has stayed upbeat about his two months with the Mariners. 'It was still Major League Baseball,' said Gerber, who was in big-league camp this spring on a minor-league contract with Tampa Bay. 'It's not what you expect, in terms of the fans, or traveling to cities. But you're still staying in the Ritz. You're still getting good food.' Bailey, a sixth-round pick in 2016, did not expect to reach the majors in 2020. He was an undersized right-handed pitcher who lacked the explosive stuff displayed by minor-league teammates like Bryan Abreu and Cristian Javier. The Astros left him exposed in the Rule 5 draft after 2019. Baltimore selected Bailey only to return him to Houston on March 6. Bailey was still processing the frustration when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 on March 11. A day later, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred suspended spring training and postponed the season. Bailey hunkered down in Tucson, Ariz., during the shutdown. He kept his arm strong by throwing with a local high school kid who was recommended by Astros pitching Brent Strom. When teams reconvened in June, Bailey impressed with his command. A series of injuries opened a spot for him on the Opening Day roster. He spent three weeks with the club. He logged two innings in a victory over Seattle on Aug. 14. After he fanned catcher Joseph Odom with a changeup, Bailey walked into the dugout unaware that he would never return to a big-league mound. 'To realize I threw my last meaningful pitch in that 2020 season and it ended in a strikeout, it's kind of romantic — but also extremely sad, at the same time,' he said. The Astros sent Bailey to the minor-league alternate site in Houston. He lingered there for the rest of the season. In November, Cincinnati acquired him. A month later, he felt a strain in his right elbow, which had already required Tommy John surgery in high school. He underwent a second elbow reconstruction that February. A cycle of rehabilitation and re-injury began, one that did not end until that teary phone call to his parents in 2023. 'That was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had in my entire life,' Bailey said. For those healthy enough to still play, the allure of the game remains. Hart needed the KBO to rejuvenate his stock. Kaminsky took a minor-league deal with St. Louis this spring. 'I'm pretty passionate about wanting to get back in,' he said. 'If I didn't think I could, I would hang them up, for sure.' In 2024, Braymer showcased himself in Mexico, Taiwan, Venezuela and the Atlantic League, all in the hopes of getting back into affiliated ball. When no offers were forthcoming, he re-upped with the Tijuana Toros. Advertisement 'There's a sense of peace I have about it all, knowing I can only do so much,' Braymer said. 'Look, I can't send myself a contract. If I could, I would.' Bailey had prepared for the end of his playing days while they were still ongoing. In the minors, he took an offseason internship at the Driveline pitching laboratory. He earned a master's degree in sports coaching from the University of Northern Colorado. The resume helped him land a job in 2024 as a minor-league pitching coach in Baltimore's system. The transition was not easy, Bailey said. He still identified as a player — and others still identified him as one. He crossed paths with former teammates John Means and Bruce Zimmerman. 'They were like, 'I didn't know you were coaching,'' Bailey said. 'They wanted me to play catch, and they're telling me, 'Man, it's coming out good.' And I'm like, 'Man, I don't want to really hear that.'' The only comparison Bailey could draw was losing a family member. There are good days and bad days. After the Dodgers hired him this winter as the pitching coach at Class-A Rancho Cucamonga, he bumped into more old teammates in the big-league clubhouse. At 30, he was reconciling the smash cut of one journey with the emergence of another. These days Bailey has a new dream. In it, he has returned to the major leagues as a coach. He will look out across a ballpark thrumming with the energy that was tucked away for all of his time in 2020. He will understand that he made it back. He will savor the moment. 'Nobody in the crowd might know that that's my debut,' Bailey said. 'No one will know that, except for me. But it will be just as special.' — The Athletic's Sam Blum contributed to this report. (Top photo of cutouts of fans above the Boston Red Sox dugout on August 7, 2020: Adam Glanzman / Getty Images)
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Yahoo
ALEA reminds people to get STAR ID ahead of May 7 enforcement
DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — Friday morning, the ALEA Drivers License Examination Office inside the Morgan County Courthouse was packed. A lot of people in the waiting area told News 19 that they were there to get their STAR ID. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) is urging people to get a STAR ID by the start of federal enforcement on May 7th. The STAR ID is Alabama's equivalent of the Real ID, which establishes minimum security standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards. Two arrested in Madison County drug bust After May 7, if you do not have a STAR ID [or a REAL ID issued by another state], you will not be able to board a domestic flight or enter certain military installations, like Redstone Arsenal. 'Don't wait until the last minute' ALEA Senior Trooper Brandon Bailey told News 19. He said if you have any upcoming flights, to get your STAR ID sooner rather than later because the TSA likely won't let you board with a paper ID. 'Alabama is one of those states when you come and get your license we do issue a paper copy,' the trooper said. 'Some airports may not take that paper copy.' Alabama congressional delegation on proposed federal workforce cuts Bailey said it can take up to 30 days to receive your hard copy of your license in the mail. To obtain a STAR ID, you can go to any of the ALEA Drivers License Examination Offices across the state. Bailey clarified that not every ALEA Drivers License Office is and Examination Office. 'It has to be an actual Drivers License Examiners Office where they give the test,' he said. The Morgan County Courthouse and the Madison County Service Center are two examples of where you can go. You can go to any of those locations for walk-in service, or make an appointment online ahead of time. You need to bring several pieces of documentation with you. Click here to go to ALEA's documentation checklist. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
