WICHITA, KAN. — At midday, when Bob Lutz left the previous mechanic’s storage that had been become the gleaming headquarters of the youth baseball league he based, he appreciated to look throughout the road on the statue of Jackie Robinson.
There, in a pavilion celebrating the baseball Corridor of Famer and civil rights icon, the bronze landmark stood within the park the place youngsters play in a league named after the Brooklyn Dodgers legend.
The Robinson statue was laborious to overlook, even on a foggy day this previous January, when Lutz squinted by raindrops and requested his administrative assistant if she may see the 6-foot, 265-pound monument. For a more in-depth look, she crossed E. seventeenth Road and headed over to McAdams Park, the place League 42 performs its video games and the place the statue had stood since 2021.
Lutz mentioned he by no means may have ready himself totally for what she reported again to him.
“They’d lower [the statue] off on the ft,” he recalled, “and it was gone.”
Earlier than he referred to as police at 12:55 p.m. and started fielding all of the media calls, Lutz did the one factor he may in that second.
He cried.
Because the tears streamed down his face, Lutz considered what he had constructed. He began League 42 in 2013, with rusted backstops and no dugouts. Gamers on 16 groups sat down the right- and left-field strains on metallic bleachers, uncovered to hard-hit foul balls. The league had grown, with 46 groups throughout 5 age teams and amenities together with outside fields with dugouts, an indoor turf follow facility, a studying middle that gives tutors and a monetary literacy program.
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Because the tears saved coming, Lutz considered the greater than 600 gamers and their households, greater than two-thirds of whom had been Black and Latino. Lutz, who as soon as feared baseball had grow to be a rustic membership sport, needed to alter that. He’d constructed it for teenagers like 9-year-old Emil Arriaga, whose mom, Valerie, referred to as the league a confidence-builder.
And he constructed it for teenagers like Ohmari Johnson, an 11-year-old who hadn’t performed baseball earlier than and was seeking a sport that match him. After a while in League 42, he appreciated it sufficient to play a tabletop model of the sport that mixes cube, math and the game’s guidelines. As soon as he discovered about Robinson and what he overcame, Johnson discovered one phrase to explain how Robinson’s story made him really feel.
“Glad,” he mentioned.
Yearly on Jackie Robinson Day, the nation displays on Robinson’s legacy. This occurs day-after-day alongside E.seventeenth Road, the place the statue stood as a logo of hope for a low-income neighborhood — the median family revenue within the league’s zip code is simply over $30,000 — and a catalyst for change inside it. This previous weekend, two groups of 13- and 14-year-olds performed a League 42 exhibition sport. Gamers and coaches gathered and talked about Robinson, sharing art work, poems and tales about their league’s namesake. The league opens its season at this time, on Jackie Robinson Day. That pedestal the place the statue as soon as stood, in a pavilion adorned in Robinson’s honor, might be empty.
That is why, when police made an arrest within the statue’s theft in February and mentioned there was no proof it was a “hate-motivated” crime, it did little to melt the blow.
“It is probably not a racially motivated hate crime,” Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, instructed ESPN within the lobby of the museum in Kansas Metropolis. “However it’s nonetheless a hate crime in its personal means.
“As a result of that was a dastardly sort of factor to do, no matter your motivation was.”
ABOUT 12 HOURS earlier than Lutz’s nightmare started, simply after midnight Jan. 25, surveillance video from League 42’s headquarters confirmed what police later recognized as a grey 2008 GMC Sierra backing up onto a curb alongside E.seventeenth Road, steps away from a pedestal the place the Robinson statue had stood. The motive force punched the fuel to rock the truck over a flower mattress, tamping down a bouquet of brush browned by the Kansas winter.
A police affidavit obtained by ESPN mentioned the motive force by no means obtained out of the truck, however two different males eliminated the statue, utilizing what police imagine was a concrete noticed earlier than tipping it over and carrying it to the mattress of the truck.
By way of a sequence of leads, police recognized a suspect, Ricky Alderete, a 45-year-old man who police mentioned had open felony warrants. In response to the affidavit, police reached one in all Alderete’s pals and considered their textual content messages.
“Rattling this sucks I am sick af. Did [Alexander Rodriguez, the husband of the woman the truck was registered to] ever come by?” the buddy wrote. “Sure final night time,” Alderete responded at 5:09 p.m. on Jan. 25, about 17 hours after police mentioned the statue was stolen, “however for actual he did not have something in any respect we had been doing unhealthy all night time and we hit a lick and did not receives a commission but after which to make issues worse we aren’t getting paid what we thought we might be getting paid we obtained like 350-400 lbs of Bronze and as an alternative of two fifty we’re solely getting one greenback a lb to separate between three folks. I am on my strategy to the scrap yard now in order that we are able to course of the scrap and receives a commission.”
Two days later, in line with police, the truck was discovered within the parking zone of a Wichita condo complicated. Neither Alderete nor the statue had been current. Then, on Jan. 30, a person who recognized himself as Jason Hale, a metropolis worker who was trimming bushes in Garvey Park — about seven miles away from the place the statue was taken — referred to as 911 to report a trash can fireplace close to a rest room constructing. He instructed the 911 operator that he could not inform what was burning.
“It melted the entire trash can,” Hale mentioned on the 911 name, which was obtained by ESPN. “It is simply burning in the midst of the bottom right here.”
Police mentioned they discovered components of the statue within the trash can. ESPN contacted Timothy J. Hale, whose identify and quantity had been listed on a police doc. An individual on the quantity confirmed discovering the hearth and texted a photograph of the statue’s head and bat on the bottom the place concrete met grass. The bronzed Brooklyn cap was charred on its left facet. Police instructed ESPN that the investigation into the hearth was ongoing.
“It simply exhibits you the mentality of those folks,” mentioned Trevor McDonald, a Wichita police sergeant accountable for larceny investigations. “Eliminate it at any likelihood they presumably can now that they know that the entire world’s coming down on them.
“They usually burn it up simply because it was trash.”
The stolen statue was commissioned by a lifelong buddy, John Parsons.
Parsons discovered a photograph of Robinson he appreciated — with Robinson’s left hand on his hip and a bat leaning on his proper shoulder — and created a mildew. Lutz used greater than $40,000 from the league’s price range for the statue and satisfied a slew of stakeholders, together with League 42’s board of administrators and Robinson’s household and identify, picture and likeness representatives, that the statue ought to be constructed.
Lutz and Parsons had been incessantly involved with Robinson’s daughter, Sharon. In response to Lutz, Sharon Robinson took the most recent renderings of the statue to her mom, Robinson’s now-101-year-old widow, Rachel Robinson, for her approval. They went forwards and backwards a number of instances and, earlier than the final iteration, Rachel Robinson needed one remaining change.
“An even bigger smile,” Lutz says now.
So Parsons obliged, and the Robinsons signed off. League 42’s statue turned one in all a minimum of 10 statues throughout the nation to honor Robinson, in line with Chris Stride, a UK professor who research sports activities statues. Robinson has probably the most statues within the U.S. of any baseball participant in historical past, in line with Stride’s analysis. The dignity of getting one in all them at McAdams Park is just not misplaced on Lutz.
That is why Lutz needed to stop when he came upon it was stolen.
“My fast response is, ‘Oh, man, that is the sort of stuff that may drive me out [of running League 42],'” Lutz mentioned, “as a result of I haven’t got the wherewithal to face up to this sort of stuff. … It was like this private affront. It was like, you’ve got damaged into my home to take … It wasn’t my statue however, in some methods, I felt prefer it was our statue. It was terribly hurtful and offensive and troublesome, for positive.”
A GoFundMe web page arrange by the league raised practically $200,000 earlier than the fundraising hyperlink was closed Feb. 5, lower than two weeks from when the statue went lacking. There have been extra donations, together with $10,000 from an nameless former skilled baseball participant and $35,000 in contributions to the league’s PayPal account. Lutz estimated that League 42 obtained between $500,000 and $600,000 in whole.
“We have been making an attempt to get the eye of Main League Baseball for a very long time,” Lutz mentioned, “and, as a result of we’re not in an MLB metropolis, it has been somewhat little bit of a problem. However it’s unusual. The theft of the statue has opened plenty of doorways for us.”
MLB has pledged to pay for the statue to be rebuilt, as a coordinated effort amongst golf equipment. Lutz mentioned League 42 has obtained a $100,000 test from MLB for the brand new statue, in addition to safety and lighting round it. He additionally mentioned the theft fostered an open line of communication between League 42 and MLB, which he hopes will present turf and lights for 2 of the youth league’s fields.
“Within the wake of this appalling crime, the 30 Golf equipment and the Commissioner’s Workplace collectively felt that it was crucial to reveal our sport’s collective assist of the Wichita neighborhood,” Tony Reagins, MLB’s chief baseball improvement officer, mentioned in an announcement to ESPN.
“We tip our caps to the management of League 42 and admire its continued affect on the event of the following technology of younger leaders and gamers, who can observe the heroic instance of their league’s namesake.”
The statue might be rebuilt the place the unique was created, Artwork Castings of Colorado, an artwork foundry 50 miles exterior of Denver. The artist, Parsons, died in 2022, however the brand new statue will use Parsons’ unique mildew. Tony Workman, the corporate’s basic supervisor, instructed ESPN that rebuilding the statue is roughly a 10-step course of and ought to be accomplished in the summertime.
“However one of many processes is making a rubber and plaster mildew from his clay unique,” Workman mentioned. “So, we use that mildew to provide a wax. We solid the wax, end the bronze and scald it.”
With all the nice that has come from one thing unhealthy, Lutz mentioned he’s glad he did not stop after the theft.
“Jackie Robinson would not need you to react like this,” Lutz mentioned. “Take a look at the adversity he confronted and that he overcame. And if he had bailed on the first signal of this sort of adversity, we would not be telling his story.”
Because of Robinson’s story, the statue’s theft turned nationwide information.
On Feb. 1, Wichita police noticed Alderete, carrying grey sweatpants and a pink hooded sweatshirt, using a bicycle about 5 miles from League 42, in line with a separate affidavit obtained by ESPN. When an officer tried to arrest him for open felony warrants, Alderete went behind a grocery retailer, police mentioned. The affidavit mentioned his bicycle later was discovered at a close-by intersection, however Alderete was gone.
The affidavit mentioned Alderete later entered the house of a person named Rowan Wiench, who believed Alderete pushed a classic Coca-Cola fridge in entrance of the door. Wiench instructed police that he additionally believed Alderete was excessive on an “unknown substance.” In response to the affidavit, Alderete instructed Wiench to not transfer.
“Ricky put [Wiench] in worry for his security and he was involved he may need weapons,” a portion of the affidavit learn. “The steps lead on to his bed room. Ricky instructed him, ‘I did not kill anybody,’ upon first contact with him. This assertion put him in extra worry.”
The affidavit mentioned Wiench was in a position to escape the home and name police after Alderete fell asleep on the ground of his bed room. Police arrested Alderete for a probation violation and kidnapping, amongst different issues, and for breaking into Wiench’s home. Twelve days later, whereas in custody, police arrested him for his position the Robinson statue theft. His fees included felony theft (worth over $25,000) and aggravated legal harm to property.
In response to an affidavit, Alderete instructed police that he was picked up at a Wichita drug home by Rodriguez, the husband of the lady to whom the GMC Sierra was registered.
“One other male, whom he is aware of as ‘Rory,’ … Advised Alderete and Rodriguez he had work for them to do and talked about one thing about scrap metallic,” the affidavit continued. “Rory introduced a concrete noticed with him. Rory then directed Rodriguez to E.seventeenth Road the place Alderete mentioned there was a ballpark with a Jackie Robinson statue.”
Alderete instructed police that he and Rory had been the 2 males who obtained out of the truck, whereas Rodriguez stayed inside. In response to the affidavit, Alderete admitted to serving to Rory push the statue over and cargo it into the truck. However he mentioned Rory lower the statue with the concrete noticed. Alderete then instructed police that he and the 2 others took the statue to a “scrap home” on East Evans Road, lower than three miles from Garvey Park, the place components of it had been discovered within the trash can. Police instructed ESPN that the East Evans Road location was a residence working as a scrapyard.
On the day of Alderete’s arrest, with Lutz standing close by, police held a information convention. Aaron Moses of the Wichita Police Division mentioned police stay dedicated to figuring out everybody who may need been concerned and spoke to a possible motive involving scrap metallic.
Workman, the final supervisor of Artwork Castings of Colorado, mentioned the unique statue was manufactured from 95% copper, probably the most sought-after metallic.
When requested what situation the statue arrived on the scrapyard, Sedgwick County district lawyer Marc Bennett instructed ESPN these particulars had been a part of an ongoing investigation. However Bennett added that Kansas laws from a decade in the past has tried to carry scrapyards accountable, although Bennett mentioned the Higher Wichita space continues to see a excessive demand for scrap metallic with folks even heading out of city in pursuit of farms with copper of their irrigation techniques.
A lawyer for Alderete, Jorge De Hoyos, declined to remark.
ON APRIL 11, forward of Jackie Robinson Day, Lutz introduced the bronze cleats that remained on the pedestal in Wichita to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas Metropolis, the place they are going to be displayed.
“We thought it was absolutely the proper factor to do,” Lutz instructed ESPN.
Kendrick, the museum’s president, mentioned the cleats possible might be displayed alongside a historic marker from Robinson’s birthplace in Cairo, Georgia — a marker that was broken by gunfire in 2021 and was donated to the museum.
Kendrick spoke with ESPN on Feb. 21, the identical day a information convention commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the 1924 Negro League World Sequence. The Kansas Metropolis Monarchs defeated Hilldale in what was then a best-of-ten sequence. Robinson performed for the Monarchs greater than 20 years later.
“It begins to make you query humanity,” Kendrick mentioned of the statue’s theft. “You’re typically prepared to surrender and wave the white flag on humanity. It is like, ‘OK, man, I am unable to take no extra of this.'”
Kendrick mentioned the statue was a logo of what Robinson represented, and the reason owed to League 42 gamers is the toughest half. It was the very first thing gamers noticed after they arrived on the discipline. That is why the cleats might be displayed within the museum. It is a part of Robinson’s story and the story of Black gamers, of any age, in baseball.
It is why Larry Dennis, a retired metropolis worker who’s now League 42’s vice chairman, smiles when requested concerning the league and its mission. He is aware of its accomplishments are distinctive. There is a story that sticks with Dennis from a sport night time at McAdams Park. By way of a connection to Wichita businessman and League 42 benefactor Dave Murfin, Corridor of Fame outfielder Reggie Jackson got here to League 42 to talk. Play stopped after Jackson pulled his automotive into the lot alongside E. seventeenth Road. Dennis remembered his non-public dialog with Mr. October.
“He mentioned he was amazed,” Dennis mentioned, referring to the variety of Black gamers on the sector. “[And] he mentioned, ‘Maintain going.'”
Each time League 42 performed video games at McAdams Park after the league started in 2013, Lutz seemed throughout E.seventeenth Road on the previous mechanic’s storage, a dilapidated constructing surrounded by decaying vehicles. Some locals say it doubled as a drug home. Everybody thought it was a blight.
Over time, the situations in McAdams Park improved. Town of Wichita pledged $1.5 million to assist kickstart League 42. Lutz mentioned the cash went towards a turf ball discipline for the league’s youngest gamers and an space for restrooms and concessions. Then the rusty fences disappeared, and the league’s two bigger fields had new backstops, dugouts, fencing and scoreboards.
“It was like jet gas to our program,” Lutz mentioned.
The league then employed Robert Swanson of Swanson Home Fundraising, and that helped result in the addition of a fourth discipline with synthetic turf and lighting. However Lutz could not get the mechanic’s storage out of his head. The refurbishment of the constructing would permit League 42 to increase past the sport itself. “I’d like to have that land,” Lutz instructed himself.
Murfin acquired the land and leased it to League 42, which turned that previous mechanic’s storage into a spot to nurture youngsters. Within the constructing, which opened within the spring of 2023, there’s an indoor follow facility with a turf discipline, in addition to the Leslie Rudd Studying Heart, the place youngsters like Thomas Lengthy are tutored. His mom, Jessica, mentioned Thomas obtained a studying progress award.
“Again within the fall, he was at-risk,” Lengthy mentioned. “He does the tutoring [at League 42] twice every week.”
The tutoring takes place inside the league’s workplaces, the place studying and baseball are intertwined. A classroom with studying rugs additionally has a framed, signed photograph of Robinson. On the identical wall, there is a dwelling plate crammed with phrases meant to encourage. HOME RUN and FULL COUNT and FLYBALL are alongside JUSTICE and SERVICE and INTEGRITY.
The league has continued so as to add training initiatives. The Ardour Undertaking speaker sequence brings in professionals from all walks of life, and Bats and Badges fosters a familiarity between youngsters and legislation enforcement. Full Rely is a partnership with a Wichita credit score union for monetary literacy.
And naturally, there’s baseball.
On a Wednesday night time in February, gentle flooded out of the north entrance of the headquarters. Lutz and League 42 now personal the constructing, the place 9- and 10-year-olds fielded floor balls and took batting follow indoors. The sounds of the sport echoed off the partitions.
Rachel Stiger, whose 9-year-old son, Gavin, performs in League 42, waited on the opposite facet of the netting that separated mother and father from the final offseason exercise on the indoor turf. She walked by a door that led to the league’s workplaces and sat below a mural of Robinson stealing dwelling within the 1955 World Sequence, sliding below the tag of Yogi Berra in some of the well-known performs in baseball historical past.
“It implies that he is ready to take a look at somebody that appears like him,” Stiger mentioned of League 42. “He is in a position to have that position mannequin. We get plenty of books about historical past. And he sees that there was battle. … Only a motivation for him, interval.”
The subsequent day, the indoor turf discipline is empty, however the constructing is just not. Ohmari Johnson, the 11-year-old who performed tabletop baseball with a buddy in League 42’s studying middle, was requested about Robinson and the lacking statue. Johnson had bother processing the theft however felt hopeful about its substitute.
Even with out the statue, Robinson’s affect remained. It is why Lutz, who spent 43 years in a sportswriting profession with The Wichita Eagle, began the league within the first place — to offer a chance for kids to play the sport and notice what’s potential. Earlier than he placed on a League 42 uniform, Johnson dreamed of shifting to San Diego. Afterward, he altered his dream.
“My dream job is to play for the San Diego Padres,” he mentioned, “… Like Fernando Tatis, my favourite participant.”