As metalworker Alex Haynes applies wax to a mold of Jackie Robinson, he reflects on the special importance of a project that will soon see a replacement bronze statue of the baseball icon installed in Wichita, Kansas, after thieves brazenly destroyed the other statue.
“A lot of sculptures come through here,” says Haynes of Art Casting Studio in Loveland, Colo., where the original statue was cast, “and some are a little more significant than others, and this is definitely one of them.”
It all started in January when thieves chopped off the original statue at its ankles., All that was left at Wichita’s McAdams Park were Robinson’s cleats.
About 600 kids play there in a youth baseball league called League 42.
The name was inspired by Robinson’s uniform number when he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the racial barrier in major league baseball in 1947.
News spread far and wide, donations flooded in from across the country, and Wichita was able to quickly reorder replacement items.
“We’ve had a lot of good fortune throughout our history with League 42,” said Bob Lutz, executive director of Little League, the nonprofit organization that commissioned the statue.
“It feels like someone is watching over us, and certainly at this point it feels like we have a guardian angel watching over us so that we can make this statue again.”
As news of the theft spread, the nonprofit was inundated with donations, an estimated $450,000 to $500,000.
That includes a $100,000 donation from Major League Baseball that will cover the $45,000 cost of replacing the statue and other improvements, such as landscaping and adding decorative bollards to discourage people from getting too close to the statue.
The remainder of the funds raised will be used to enhance the nonprofit’s programs and facilities.
Last year, the organization opened the Leslie Ladd Learning Center, which features an indoor baseball field and learning lab.
There may also be enough funding to add artificial turf and lighting, Latz said.
Another stroke of luck for Lutz is that the replacement work will be an exact replica of the original created by his friend, the artist John Parsons, before his death in 2022 at the age of 67.
This was possible because the original form was still viable.
“If that hadn’t been the case, I don’t think I would feel as good about it as I do right now,” Latz said.
The situation looked dire five days after the theft when firefighters found the burnt remains of the statue while responding to a dumpster fire at another park about seven miles from the theft scene.
Investigations into the crimes, for which one man has pleaded guilty and police have claimed responsibility, are continuing. The motive was not racial animus but a plan to sell the copper as scrap.
“It was a stupid plan,” said Tony Workman, owner of Art Castings in Colorado, a city about 50 miles north of Denver known for its sculptors and artists.
“The problem is, a dumpster can’t make a fire hot enough to melt metal,” Workman said, “It’ll just burn the sculpture, so we’ll still be able to tell what it was.”
In addition to the statue’s reconstruction, the bronze spikes that were separated from the original statue found a new home last month at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
It’s a fitting spot: Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, paving the way for generations of black American baseball players.
Robinson was a 2001 veteran of the NBA and was a member of the NBA’s NBA All-Star Game, a NBA All-Star Game, and a member of the NBA’s NBA All-Star Game.
“The outpouring of support that people have shown as a result of this reminds us that light does indeed come from darkness,” said Bob Kendrick, director of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
The spike is part of an exhibit at the museum, which also displays a bullet-holed plaque outside Robinson’s childhood home near Cairo, Georgia.
“This movie renews our spirit and our faith in humanity, because sometimes humans do despicable things and sometimes you just want to give up on them,” Kendrick said.
“But you know you can’t give up on people even though you want to sometimes.”
Emilio Estevez, a financial-services employee from Miami, stopped to admire the cleats on a recent morning and described Robinson as inspirational both for his athleticism and his ability to withstand heckling while still fitting in with the sport.
“We can all learn from it,” he said.
And the thieves couldn’t get away with it, Estevez said.
“He’s still in all of our hearts. Like here in the museum, he’s still very present, very much a presence,” he said.
