By Jeff Clemetson | Editor

Back in early December, maintenance workers at the Lake Murray Park baseball fields discovered something odd. Someone had started sawing down several trees that were planted near the Rookie and Caps fields that butt up against neighbors’ yards.

President of San Carlos Little League (SCLL) Gracie Gagliano called the city to find out why the trees were cut down. The city didn’t know anything about it.

In early January more trees were discovered cut down and it became apparent that the baseball fields had been vandalized.

“Those trees provide shade for our families during the season and we were all shocked that they were cut,” Gagliano said.

So far, the police investigation has turned up no witnesses and no leads.

“It’s kind of a dead end at this point,” said San Diego Police Department Community Relations Officer John Steffen, adding that the estimated damage to the vandalized trees was valued at around $5,000.

Steffen urges any witnesses or anyone with any information about the vandalized trees to contact him by phone at 858-495-7971 or by email at [email protected].

Part of a larger problem

The vandalism at Lake Murray Park is just the latest in a string of problems that local sports fields have experienced over the last several years. And it wasn’t the first time trees were the target.

President of Patriots Baseball Nancy Hemmings said its ballpark, Shira Field, had an incident in which someone also cut a tree down for firewood in early December.

“Our outfield butts up against the Mission Trails Golf Course and so there’s a little corner back in there where someone came in and they cut a tree down,” she said. “They had left it there over night, they cut it up into small pieces and when I came back the next day it was gone.”

Trees aren’t the only things being stolen from the Patriots.

In mid-summer of last year, a storage container was robbed of a cart used to drag the infield, the drag itself was also stolen, as well as a pitching machine.

“They initially broke into the snack bar trying to see if there was anything there they could take,” Hemmings said. “The only thing they got out of there was an old laptop computer, but they did take our slushie machine and we found it later in the day stored in the bushes.”

“The storage container door was damaged during the robbery and insurance won’t cover that,” Hemmings said. “Our season is starting here in another month or two and without the equipment, it just really puts us in bad shape.”

Other issues the Patriots have experienced at the ball field include damage from skateboarding on the metal grandstands; graffiti on fencing; drug deals in the parking lot; people committing sex acts in the dugouts and stands after hours; and cars that spin donuts in the dirt parking lot.

“The biggest problem we have is we just invested a large amount of money from a county grant to upgrade the playing field,” Hemming said. “We did an all new sprinkler system and an all new infield that we laser leveled and everything. We posted signs asking people to please stay off the field and they did good — until about a month ago.

“Now, all of a sudden, they’re getting on the field again and they’re tearing everything up. We feel that the field is not being respected as it should be by the community,” she said.

SCLL is also victim to people disrespecting their parks. Gagliano said that the Minor League field’s scorebox is constantly being broken into so much that it is now almost never locked.

“There’s lots of drug paraphernalia found there, lots of condoms,” she said. “It’s just horrible because we’ve got our kids going through there and we’re always asking the parent volunteers to watch what’s in there and remove what they can.”

Other sports organizations have been victims of theft as well.

“As I watch the news, this has happened all over San Diego; a lot of it seems to be in South Bay this year,” said Terry Cords, president of Crusader Soccer and also chair of the San Carlos/Lake Murray and Allied Gardens recreation councils.

“It’s happened to us over the years,” he said. “Probably five or six years ago, Crusaders had a bunch of our goals taken. They stole them for the scrap aluminum and it probably cost us about $1,000 to replace them.”

The Navajo Girls Fastpitch Softball league, which also uses fields in Lake Murray Park, experienced a recent theft when a small John Deere cart vehicle was stolen. It was later found in La Mesa after it ran out of gas and was returned by police.

“The only reason why they were able to get it back to Navajo was because Navajo had their sticker that said ‘Navajo Fast Pitch’ on the cart, so the police contacted the city,” Gagliano said.

What can be done

Preventing theft and vandalism at sports fields is easier said than done because youth sports leagues have little money to afford security patrols and merely locking up the equipment doesn’t seem to be working.

“I’d say there’s always a risk [of theft],” Cords said. “Most of the sports leagues have storage containers — they’re the old at-sea storage containers, 20-foot and 40-foot containers, and they’re locked with pad locks. I’ve learned that pad locks keep honest people out; they don’t keep dishonest people out.”

Gagliano has another idea to keep dishonest people out.

“I wish we could have lights there because it is super dark,” she said, while admitting that it would be an uphill battle to get them. “None of the neighbors like the idea of lights.”

Hemmings said there has been a degree of carelessness with keys to snack bars and storage containers, leaving them in plain site during weekend tournaments that have hundreds of out of the area visitors to the field who might have nefarious intentions while visiting.

“We, as a league, have to do something a little bit better, I believe, to secure the property,” she said. “The police do the best job they can to monitor [the field] but they have their hands full as well.”

One of the most important preventative measures is for the leagues to report every act of theft and vandalism to the police so they know where to beef up patrols, Officer Steffen said.

“It’s all based upon where we see the crimes occurring, so if people aren’t reporting them we don’t know there’s an issue,” he said. “If you see something, you have to say something and then we can handle the situation.”

Community members can also help by treating the fields with respect, keeping pets on leashes while using the fields and cleaning up their trash. They can also make donations to leagues to help pay for damaged and stolen equipment.

“We operate on the bare minimum, but we do this because we’re trying to provide a positive opportunity for these 13- and 14-year olds — trying to teach them values, respect and all this while they play the game of baseball,” Hemming said.

To donate to Patriots Baseball, visit their GoFundMe page at gofundme.com/ShiraField. To donate to the San Carlos Little League, visit their website at sancarloslittleleague.com.

—Reach Jeff Clemetson at [email protected].