Earlier this week, hundreds of community members gathered at McAdams Park in Wichita, Kansas for the unveiling of a new Jackie Robinson statue, after an older one was stolen seven months ago.

According to a press release, the six-foot bronze replacement statue was cast from artist John Parson’s original mold and has been erected in the same pavilion where the original stood since 2021. 

Former baseball players CC Sabathia, Dellin Betances, and Jeremy Guthrie were in attendance. Bob Kendrick, the president of Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, was also present and delivered a few remarks on Robinson’s legacy of breaking the color barrier.

“The statue is not only a piece of art or even just a tribute to the first Black player in Major League Baseball,” he said. “That statue had become a symbol. A symbol of hope, a symbol of inspiration, of the core values that were part of Jackie’s legacy. Those were fixtures here in the ballpark.”

Kendrick also added that it was hard for him to explain the statue's theft to the 600 children who play in League 42, which was named after Robinson's uniform with the Brooklyn Dodgers, where he broke MLB’s racial barrier in 1947. Kendrick was worried that the children might lose faith in humanity.

A few days before the unveiling, Ricky Aldrete was sentenced to 15 years in prison on three cases that stemmed from a drug addiction, including the statue heist. “I let fentanyl take over me and made a lot of poor decisions,” Aldrete had said in court at the time. “I am not going to deny that. I never meant to hurt anybody. I am embarrassed, I’m ashamed.”