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Art Castings of Colorado will have the new statue completed in July.
LOVELAND, Colo. — Art Castings of Colorado was contacted almost three years ago to cast a statue of major league hall of famer Jackie Robinson. Now, they’re doing it again.
League 42 erected the statue outside a baseball facility in Wichita, Kansas, where it was stolen after being cut off at the ankles and found in pieces. The company is being called on to replace the stolen statue.
“We still had the molds, and making a new one wasn’t going to be that big of deal,” said Art Castings of Colorado general manager Tony Workman. “This is very important to a lot of people, so we take a little extra care to make sure that everything is just perfect.”
Artist John Parsons contacted the foundry in 2020 to finish the bronze statue that took about six to eight months to complete. The League 42 foundation started a GoFundMe page to raise money to replace the statue and received about $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.
“A lot of the sculptures that we do don’t have a lot of meaning, but this one means a lot to a lot of different people.” Workman said. “That keeps us on our toes to make sure that we can give them the best product, and it looks just like the original.”
David Hobbs is a spruer for the bronze casting foundry. He helped work on the original statue and is working on the replacement. Hobbs said the news of the vandalism was a surprise to him.
“You think that a sculpture is forever,” Hobbs said. “You never think about the possibility of it being stolen.”
The sculpture is ready to go back through the casting process, and Hobbs said the new statue will be ready by July.
“That’s one of the cool parts about a job at an art foundry,” Hobbs said. “A lot of the sculptures means so much to different groups of people, and so it’s awesome that this piece will go into a community that [he’s] an idol to them, and I think that’s pretty great.”
One man has pleaded guilty to the robbery, saying he had plans to sell the bronze for scrap.
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 a civil rights icon. Robinson died in 1972. Workman hopes this time, the statue will be able to serve the Wichita community for a very long time.
“It’s kind of fun every once in a while, you get a project like this,” Workman said. “It means a lot to a lot of kids and a lot of folks around the country, so we’re happy to participate.”
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