As the Jackie Robinson statue returns to Wichita, so do the lessons learned

WICHITA, Kansas — Six months ago, the city had an issue. Under cover of darkness, someone drove a van into McAdams Park, cut a figure off at the feet and towed him away. The security footage is downright difficult to watch. A bunch of shadowy figures loitering in the plaza on seventeenth Street, after which suddenly the majestic figure drops onto the platform, bouncing barely from the impact.

It’s one thing to know in your mind that tons of of children who play baseball and admire the statue will not have an icon to look up to. It’s quite one other to see the actual footage of the theft and the gruesome footage of Robinson’s severed head burning on the ground.

“When I got there, there were already multiple officers on the scene,” Wichita Police Department Lt. Drew Seiler said of the theft. “We had officers in the League 42 constructing reviewing video footage from the last 24 hours. The area was cordoned off. We began a forensic investigation to collect any physical evidence and document the scene because it was found.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a physical statue removed like this. And it’s scary because we have a lot of thefts in cemeteries. People go to the cemetery and cut off the brass candlesticks or flower pots that are glued to either side of the headstone.”

He was placed on trial for the case, which he claims to have treated as a murder, spending an important deal of time and energy trying to find the perpetrators. When I first heard about the case, it appeared like a transparent case of somebody deliberately trying to desecrate a monument related to Robinson, which happens so often that the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, has a complete exhibit devoted to these perpetrators.

But after spending time there, the reality of the situation is way sadder than what we initially believed on the surface. The sheer desperation it takes to try to scrap a complete statue for metal, irrespective of who it’s, is such a grim reminder of the circumstances many face in 2024. A shortsighted, mean decision ultimately driven by substance abuse affected many individuals and effectively ended the lifetime of one when Ricky Alderete was sentenced to 15 years for theftand various other previous accusations.

Not that this was anything latest for Seiler — absolutely nothing.

“You and I probably have a different lifestyle than the person we identified as the person who did this,” Seiler explained as calmly as possible. “So what you and I consider normal behavior is different than the behavior of the people who were involved in this. And going through this investigation, the sentimental value of what Jackie Robinson represents — not just to this youth program, to our city, but to our state and our nation, what he does for sports and the doors that were opened — the sentimental value that he brings was never felt. It wasn’t even considered, from what I understood from talking to the detectives and the officer who followed up on all of our leads. It was never considered. It was the value of the physical object.”

As much as I feel offended and upset as a black person and a baseball fan, there may be also an element of me as a human being that’s just ashamed that a gaggle of persons are trying to pull off a Scooby-Doo level scam, all for drugs.

“Wichita is not the yellow brick road that everyone thinks it is, with the wind blowing around the weeds,” explained councilman and native Brandon Johnson. “You know, we’re an enormous city, the largest city in Kansas. An amazing city. Our strength is our people. When you walk around, you don’t see people just ignoring you. Everyone smiles at you. You might get a number of waves.

“There’s a lot of opportunity here. And growing up here was fun. You know, we made the best of it, even though I was poor. And that’s kind of my focus now, is making sure that our lower-income communities have those same opportunities.”

In an election 12 months, especially one which takes place during the Olympics, Wichita is a stark reminder of the real drug problem in America. It’s not only the fictional Walter White from a TV show running around New Mexico, a gaggle of wealthy kids at a highschool party in Los Angeles, or the drug lord Ghost trying to run his business legally.

This is a grown man, a profession criminal — a nasty one at that — trying to feed his fentanyl addiction with a vile, brazen stunt. He wasn’t alone, but he was the one who got caught. Even after the statue returned to McAdams Park on Monday to much fanfare, there’s something about the final result that feels so sad.

Maybe it’s because Alderete is around my age. Maybe it’s because my friends have lost their lives to accidental drug overdoses. Or possibly it’s because his life as he knows it’s effectively over.

“I let fentanyl get to me and I made a lot of bad decisions. I’m not going to deny that. I never meant to hurt anyone. I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed. Whatever you do today, I accept it,” he said. “I’m ready for it. I believe I’m where I need to be right now because at the rate I’m going, I could be dead.”

He got 15 years.

“For someone who thinks they can drop all this and make a few dollars and see it as meaningless and fueling this idea of, ‘Let’s just make a few dollars,’ it’s more disappointing and hurtful,” Johnson lamented.

In short, a few of this doesn’t look like a very comfortable ending. Despite all the possibilities in Kansas, the desperation is apparent. When you see people walking down the street after a certain time of day, they probably don’t have anywhere to stay. The margins through which individuals slip are the ones from which individuals should have the option to return.

“I would not only invite him to the unveiling, but I would ask him if you have a baseball background. How can we make this a success story for you so you don’t have to spend the rest of your life as a villain?” So that will be really cool,” Lutz said. “But if he’s sitting in a jail cell right now, regretting what he did, and he wants to tell us about it, he should be able to do that. And if he wants to go further and be a part of League 42, we wouldn’t be following the Jackie Robinson model if we denied that.”

While the symbolism and uplifting are great, it’s still only a statue. It might be rebuilt. And since the form still exists, although John Parsons, the sculptor and friend of Lutz’s, has died, that’s exactly what they did — 560 miles away in Loveland, Colorado.

Tony Workman stands in his foundry, Art Castings of Colorado, watching certainly one of his crew members polish a bronze head of Jack Roosevelt Robinson. Right next to him is a breastplate bearing the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers name and the number 42, for the second baseman whose metal likeness is getting a second likelihood at life.

“We use 100,000 pounds of metal a year,” Workman said.

He explains the intricate technique of making a statue. The smell of metalworking is unforgettable. To them, it’s just one other statue. They make plenty of them. Tom Osborne in front of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. Willie Mays in front of Oracle Park in San Francisco. Roberto Clemente in Pittsburgh. The list goes on.

“The first step in the process is pouring all the rubber into the molds. That gives you all the detail,” Workman said as we toured the facility amidst fields. “And if you’ve ever built a candle, you’ll pour in wax that’s three-sixteenths of an inch thick. That’s the thickness of the wax and ultimately the metal. For larger pieces like Jackie Robinson, I think the castings are eight pieces. We’re not just casting full-size figures.”

The whole thing could be very rough, noisy and, frankly, physically dangerous, a reminder of what people undergo to each earn an honest living and feed their addictions. Even in the event that they weren’t pumping out motion figures of all types, it could take a month to construct a statue of Robinson, he said.

On Monday at McAdams Park, the community and League 42 celebrated the return of their premier facility.

“There’s not much you can do if someone gets the idea to steal something, and copper prices are what they are,” Workman said. “The only problem with stealing a sculpture is you can’t break it down into a small enough piece that people don’t realize it’s a sculpture, right? And every scrap dealer in America knows not to take that. You know, if you’re going to commit a crime, it’s usually not the best or brightest, but they tried.”

Hopefully, the lessons learned from this complete ordeal will help greater than only one Little League, one city, or one foundry. Hopefully, we’ll keep in mind that there are methods to help one another so this never happens again—to anyone.