As he coats a mold of Jackie Robinson with wax, metalsmith Alex Haines reflects on the extra importance of a project that will soon give the city of Wichita, Kansas, a replacement bronze statue of the baseball icon after thieves brazenly destroyed the original.

“Many sculptures come through here,” said Haines at the Art Castings studio in Loveland, Colorado, where the original statue was cast. “Some are a little bit more important than others. And this is definitely one of them.”

It all started in January, when thieves cut the original statue off at its ankles, leaving only Robinson’s cleats behind at McAdams Park in Wichita.

About 600 children play there in a youth baseball league called League 42.

It is named after Robinson’s uniform number with the Brooklyn Dodgers, with whom he broke the major league’s color barrier in 1947.

The news spread wide, and a national outpouring of donations followed that enabled Wichita to quickly reorder a replacement.

“There’s been a lot of serendipity when it comes to League 42 throughout our entire existence,” said Bob Lutz, who is executive director of the Little League nonprofit that commissioned the statue.

“It’s almost like there’s somebody watching out for us. And certainly, in this regard, we feel like … there was a guardian angel making sure that we could do this statue again.”

As news spread of the theft, the nonprofit was flooded with an estimated $450,000 to $500,000 in donations.

That includes a $100,000 gift from Major League Baseball, which will cover the statue’s $45,000 replacement cost and other improvements, including landscaping and adding decorative bollards that will keep people from driving too close to the statue.

The rest of the money raised will go toward enhancing some of the nonprofit’s programming and facilities.

Last year, the group opened the Leslie Rudd Learning Center, which includes an indoor baseball facility and a learning lab.

There might even be enough money to add artificial turf and more lighting, Lutz said.

Another blessing for Lutz is that the replacement will look exactly like the original, which was created by his friend, the artist John Parsons, before his death in 2022 at the age of 67.

That is possible because the original mold was still viable.

“If that wasn’t the case, I don’t know that I would feel as good about all this as I do,” Lutz said.

It looked dire five days after the theft, when fire crews found burned remnants of his statue while responding to a trash can fire at another park about 7 miles away from the scene of the theft.

One man has pleaded guilty, and the investigation continues into a crime that police have said was motivated not by racial animus but by plans to sell the bronze for scrap.

It was a stupid plan, said Tony Workman, owner of Art Castings of Colorado. The town where the business is located, around 50 miles north of Denver, is well known for its abundance of sculptors and artists.

“The problem is you can’t get a fire in a dumpster hot enough to melt metal,” Workman said. “All you’re gonna do is burn the sculpture. So you’re still going to be able to tell what it was.”

Beyond rebuilding the statue, the severed bronze cleats from the original statue found a new home last month at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

It is a fitting location. Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, paving the way for generations of Black American ballplayers.

He is considered not only a sports legend but also a civil rights icon. Robinson died in 1972.

“The outpouring of support that folks have gotten as a result of this, it reminds us that light indeed does come out of darkness,” said Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

At the museum, the cleats are part of a display that also includes a gunfire-riddled plaque that had been erected outside Robinson’s birthplace near Cairo, Georgia.

“It renews our spirt and belief in people because sometimes people will do despicable things, and it makes you want to give up on people,” Kendrick said.

“But you know you can’t give up on people, even though sometimes you want to.”

On a recent morning, Emilio Estevez, a financial services worker from Miami, stopped to look at the cleats. He described Robinson as an inspiration — both because of this athleticism and his ability to put up with jeers while integrating the sport.

“We can all learn from that,” he said.

And the thieves couldn’t take that away, Estevez said.

“He’s still in all our minds. He’s still very present, like here in the museum, very prevalent,” he said.

Head coach Peter Vermes and Sporting are in need of a result in league play heading into their matchup with the Timbers. They are winless in MLS since March 30, coincidentially starting their current streak with the 3-3 result against Portland at Children’s Mercy Park. Since then they have amassed a 0-5-1 record. It’s not all dark and cloudy in KC however, they have two U.S. Open Cup victories to show for over that span with their most recent coming this past Tuesday to push them into the quarterfinals of the domestic competition.

Forwards William Agada (3g, 2a) and Alan Pulido (3g, 1a) have been the firepower for SKC in the front lline. Midfielder Erik Thommy has been heavily involved offensively, registering four goals and an assist through 12 games. Defensively, they’ve lost one of their rocks in the backline in centerback Daniel Rosero who suffered an injury earlier this month. He led them in clearances and blocks per game. Defender Andreu Fontas has had to step up in the back, and will need to be on his toes this Saturday when he faces one of the highest-scoring offenses in the league.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – Spring and summer means a pair of peregrine falcons are nesting atop a Kansas City building.

It’s part of an effort through the Missouri Department of Conservation to restore falcons across the state. The department said the falcons originally nested on cliffs. Now they are drawn to the ledges of tall buildings.

One of those buildings stands near 25th Street and Grand. The Department of Conservation installed a next box on the roof. This spring a falcon pair claimed the box and guarded four eggs in the nest.

The eggs hatched and people can now watch a live feed of the young birds grow from a camera feed streamed to YouTube.

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Another camera is mounted in a nest box on a smokestack at the Iatan Energy Plant near Weston, Mo.

The Missouri Department of Conservation checks in on the falcon families and bands the young birds before they leave the nest. Biologists use the leg bands to track the movements of falcons across the country.

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