'Out of darkness comes light': Replacement Jackie statue unveiled

WICHITA, Kan. -- The 8-year-old boy was too small, too short, too swallowed by the podium in front of him to be seen by most of the hundreds of community members who had gathered at the McAdams Park ballfields in the 99-degree heat Monday evening.

But the words uttered softly into the microphone by young Marcus Jones resonated loudly as he spoke of the legacy of Jackie Robinson.

“Jackie Robinson was the first African American in Major League Baseball,” said Jones, who is Black. “And he was one of the greatest players of all time. And he put a spark in all of us.”

Moments later, when Jones and his fellow members of League 42, a youth baseball league comprised primarily of inner-city children, pulled off a large tarp to reveal the Robinson statue that now replaces the one savagely stolen from this spot outside the league’s headquarters back in January, the effect of that spark was evident.

The shocking crime that took place here seven months ago inspired action, and the end result on this “exciting but somber day,” as League 42 founder Bob Lutz put it, was a reminder of how the sins of mankind can be overcome.

“We can get bogged down in the bad and the negative and there's so many reasons for that,” Lutz said. “But when people actually come together, then we're a pretty good society.”

When the original Robinson statue was cut off at its ankles by a man looking to sell the scrap to feed his fentanyl addiction, the news lit a spark not just in the Wichita community but across the country, drawing more than half a million dollars in donations from Major League Baseball and other entities and individuals.

Including, notably, the $2 that Jones contributed from his allowance.

And so, with the six-foot bronze replacement statue cast from artist John Parson’s original mold and erected -- a little bit higher -- in the same pavilion where the original had stood since 2021, a society of believers in the power of baseball materialized on this sun-splashed day in northeast Wichita. A contingent from MLB was on hand for Monday’s unveiling, including former players CC Sabathia, Dellin Betances and Jeremy Guthrie. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick delivered particularly poignant remarks on Robinson’s legacy and lasting lessons.

“We know that out of darkness comes light,” said Kendrick. “I think we were able to bear witness to that.”

Just three days earlier, Ricky Aldrete was sentenced to 15 years in prison on three cases that stemmed from his drug addiction, including the statue heist.

“I let fentanyl take over me and made a lot of poor decisions,” Aldrete said in court. “I am not going to deny that. I never meant to hurt anybody. I am embarrassed, I’m ashamed.”

When Sabathia first heard the news about the stolen statue in a group text among members of the Players Alliance, he was one of many who reflexively assumed the desecration of a sculpture meant to honor a Civil Rights icon must have been a hate crime.

“Then, once you figure out that it wasn't, it's just sad,” Sabathia said. “Like, the whole situation is just sad all around. You know, for these kids out here, League 42 is something that me growing up as a kid, I would have had to play in. So I just felt connected to the story and felt sorry for the league for having to go through this.”

The silver lining of the awful crime is the attention it brought to League 42. Lutz, a retired Wichita Eagle sports columnist and the host of a local radio show, founded the league in 2013 after years of writing and discussing his disappointment with the number of Black and underprivileged kids playing baseball.

Lutz and the league’s board members decided to honor Robinson with the league name because he was the ultimate representative of everything the league aims to be.

“It’s a perfect name, and it carries a lot of responsibility,” Lutz said. “You can't name a league after Jackie Robinson and half-ass it with sportsmanship and behavior. So we keep an eye on those things. And we want our kids to behave, our coaches to behave, our spectators to behave. So that's really important. It's not just a talking point, it's a real thing.”

With the support of the city of Wichita and other donors and backers, League 42 has grown from 16 teams and around 200 players in its inaugural season in 2014 to 46 teams and around 600 kids today. The McAdams Park fields have been improved with backstops, dugouts, fencing and scoreboards, and an old mechanic’s garage across the street has been refurbished and turned into an indoor practice facility and tutoring center.

“Last year,” Lutz said, “we filled our league in three days.”

Lutz’s goals with League 42 dovetail nicely with MLB’s commitment to growing the game among underserved youth. That’s why there was no hesitation among MLB owners to donate $100,000 to the league to fund a new statue and security and lighting around it.

“Our hope,” said Tony Reagins, MLB’s chief baseball development officer, “is that the thousands of young people that utilize the Leslie Rudd Learning Center across the street and the many thousands of young people that will play on these ballfields behind us will come to know how baseball, how this community, how this country, even the world, rallied around a tremendous wrong and made it right.”

It was made right because, once again, Jackie Robinson lit a spark in so many.

“When you hear Jackie’s name,” said Sabathia, “people rally.”