When the Jackie Robinson statue was stolen from McAdams Park, where League 42 plays its games, on Jan. 24, then desecrated and burned by some haters, the entire baseball community ran to lend a helping hand in getting the statue found, restored and spreading the word and giving donations. The statue suffered $75K worth of damage and its remnants were discovered about seven miles from the park.
Cleats From Desecrated Statue Donated To Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
League 42 will donate the bronze cleats from its Jackie Robinson statue to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Kansas City, Missouri), Bob Lutz, the founder and executive director of League 42, told ESPN on Friday.
The organization, which was founded in 2013 and named in Robinson’s honor, was started by Lutz to promote the play of African American youths in baseball.
After the plan to replace the statue was finalized thanks to great leadership by League 42 and local community leaders, in conjunction with Major League Baseball and The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a strategy was formed to put the desecrated statue to good use.
Donating them to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum — the league Robinson played in before breaking MLB’s color barrier — seemed like the most logical choice.
“We thought it was the absolute right thing to do,” Lutz said. “It’s looking like the cleats will be delivered by April 11, definitely before Jackie Robinson Day [April 15].”
Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, told ESPN that there will be a ceremony when the cleats arrive at the museum.
Kendrick said the museum already has a historical marker from Cairo, Georgia, Robinson’s birthplace, and the cleats will likely go in that section of the museum. In 2021, the marker was shot at with guns and donated in the aftermath.
“We have a story to tell,” Kendrick told ESPN.
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