Sunday, September 01, 2013

My Sunday Feeling



Yesterday's news is indeed proof of the old saying that some people will steal anything that's neither tied down nor red hot. 

Some bastard or bastards broke into the storage unit at Miracle League Field here in Little Rock and stole 75 baseball gloves.  Around 4:30 yesterday afternoon it was discovered that 2 buckets containing around @ 50 "soft" baseballs were also taken.  You know how these things go.  I'm sure that as Peggy, the Executive Director, continues to poke around she will discover that other stuff is missing.  That's the way it usually works.

To the uninitiated, Miracle League is a nationwide franchise dedicated to baseball for disabled kids.  In Little Rock, it has expanded to two leagues.  The Friday night players actually learn skills, get called out and keep the score.  It was for those players that we needed the gloves.  Naturally, we start up next Friday night.

My first reaction is to repeat what I usually say about this kind of offense.  Property offenders sure work awfully hard for a minimal payoff.  It would be easier to hold down a real job. 

Here, the crooks apparently climbed up the side of the building, pried off a loose panel on the metal roof and dropped themselves into the shed.  That's a lot of work to steal a bunch of stuff that has zero resale value on the street.  As a matter of economics and tactics, this heist makes no sense whatsoever.

Which makes me wonder if somebody is trying to outfit a couple of tee ball or pitching machine teams on the cheap?  That makes more sense than trying to fence this stuff.

Stealing from disabled and underprivileged kids to gather gear for your own kiddie team is so completely fucked up, I kinda like it as a theory.  In any event, nothing else makes much sense.

But some good has come of this.  Like discovering that Facebook can be used for something more useful than posting pictures of lunch.  And to see folks from all walks of life get to work out of a sense of complete outrage is wondrous indeed.  The Junior League is pissed.  My State Representative's wife is pissed.  The Better Business Bureau is putting out a collection box as are local Starbucks. 

The guys at a local high end men's store have been sending me good ideas about resources to tap.  My brother is in contact with an acquaintance in the corporate office of a nationwide sporting goods chain.  The Junior Deputy baseball program, who deeded Miracle League the land where we play, is going to scare up some balls and gloves.  Before it's over, I suspect the Hillcrest Baptists and Methodists will pitch in.  Because I have put the arm on their respective pastors. 

The very idea that somebody would steal from disabled children has a whole lot of folks completely riled up.  But another typical reaction may be summed up from my buddy Jeff who texted the following: "It is a sad world we live in." Indeed.

I hope whoever did this can live with himself.  But because a whole slew of good folks from all walks of life, some of whom could give a rip about baseball, couldn't live with what he did to those kids we are gonna play ball as scheduled this Friday.   

Whoever you are that did this, if there are Bunsen burners in the lowest part of Hell, I hope you get assigned one. 

Because you stole from disabled children. 

You son of a bitch.







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