Donations poured in Wednesday to replace a destroyed statue of Jackie Robinson on what would have been the 105th birthday of the first player to break Major League Baseball's color barrier. Major League Baseball pledged support. And the total raised just through one online fundraiser surpassed $145,000, which is far in excess of the estimated $75,000 value of the bronze statue that was cut from its base last week at a park in Wichita, Kansas, the AP reports. Police are searching for those responsible. Only the statue's feet were left at McAdams Park, where about 600 children play in a youth baseball league called League 42, which is named after Robinson's uniform number with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Fire crews found burned remnants of the statue Tuesday while responding to a trash can fire at another park about 7 miles away. Bob Lutz, executive director of the Little League nonprofit that commissioned the sculpture, said Wednesday in a message on X that the MLB commissioner's office and 30 clubs had committed funding toward the cost of replacing the statue and providing other support. "Amazing, huh?" he said. Lutz, whose friend, the artist John Parsons, made the statue before his death, said the mold is still viable and anticipated that a replacement can be erected within a matter of months.
Lutz had said earlier that the money raised also could enhance some of its programming and facilities. "We're not just baseball," Lutz said. "We have after school education, enrichment, and tutoring." One of the largest donations is a $10,000 pledge from an anonymous former Major League Baseball player who won a World Series. Wichita police Chief Joe Sullivan, who announced the donation over the weekend, has urged anyone involved in the theft to surrender and vowed that arrests were imminent. "The community, along with the business community and the nation as a whole, have demonstrated an incredible outpouring of support," Sullivan said in a statement Wednesday. (More Jackie Robinson stories.)
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