Jackie Robinson statue cleats heading to Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

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Jackie Robinson statue cleats heading to Negro Leagues Baseball Museum​

The bronze cleats from a Jackie Robinson statue that was cut at the ankles and stolen last month will be donated to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, League 42's executive director told ESPN on Friday. Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said Friday that there are plans to have a ceremony when the cleats arrive at the museum. Kendrick said the cleats likely will be displayed alongside a historical marker from Robinson's birthplace in Cairo, Georgia -- a marker that was damaged by gunfire in 2021 and was donated to the museum.

The statue, which police said was valued at $75,000, was stolen from McAdams Park, where League 42 plays its games. Police said they don't believe the crime to be racially motivated, based on what they know at this time. Instead, according to police, it's believed that it was "motivated by the financial gain of scrapping common metal." Lutz, a former Wichita newspaper reporter, founded the league a decade ago in a grassroots effort to provide an outlet for kids and to increase local African American participation in the sport. It now has more than 600 players, uses four fields and provides an indoor workout facility with artificial turf, along with after-school tutoring and financial literacy programs.

The statue of Robinson was erected in the park in 2021.

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New Jackie Robinson statue unveiled in Wichita, Kansas​

Organizers of a youth baseball league in Wichita, Kansas, unveiled a new Jackie Robinson statue Monday evening, replacing the original that was stolen from one of the city's parks and vandalized earlier this year. The new statue was returned to McAdams Park, where League 42 plays its games. MLB paid for the statue's replacement. Art Castings of Colorado, an art foundry situated 50 miles outside of Denver, used the original mold created by Parsons -- who died in 2022 -- to recreate the statue. Several of League 42's 600 players -- two-thirds of whom are Black and Latino -- were on hand, including 8-year-old Marcus Jones, who volunteered to speak. Ricky Alderete, 45, was arrested after the statue went missing. He pleaded guilty to theft and other charges in May and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for multiple cases on Friday. No other arrests have been made.

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