Editor, Times-Union: I would like to take a moment to sarcastically thank the thief who made my 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son cry most of the night last night. Sunday, my kids arrived home from visiting with their grandparents all excited and they had to show me their new ball gear for the season. You see practice had started 2 weeks ago but we hadn’t the extra cash to get them their new stuff yet. My daughter shows me her new glove ,she is all excited about a Jennie Finch black and pink glove, and cleats bright and shiny. She says “they will go great with my lucky bat” the same one she played with last year. My son then shows me his new cleats and is excited because he gets to play coaches pitch this year. Grandma and Papa had bought him new ball pants and a brand new batting helmet for this season. They can’t wait, They grab there stuff and head outside. They decide it will be better with friends so they head down the street to get a couple of friends to play with them. They lay there new stuff down to go get their friends. My wife hears a white car stop and notices him trying to load my sons New Green Machine a birthday present from the beginning of the month into the white car. My wife yells at him and says that is her son’s and that he was riding it a minute ago. The guy said “oh I thought is was trash!” It’s brand new. Why would it be trash? Trash day is not until Wednesday. So the guy leaves. I go out and grab the green machine and bring it back to the garage. Meanwhile my kids are on their way back with their friends. I stop them and scold my boy for leaving his Green machine out and tell him the story of how it was almost stolen. They then asked where their ball stuff went. We looked around, they said they laid it by the big rock in our front yard. I can only assume that the same white car had picked up the ball equipment out of the yard before he tried to get the green machine then took off with it once my wife yelled at him. So all said and done my daughter’s new glove of maybe an hour my boys glove the two new balls they had, my daughter’s lucky Easton bat and my boy’s brand new batting helmet all stolen from our yard while they were getting more friends to play ball with them. Last night they were sitting in their cleats crying with no equipment to play with because someone stole it from our yard! Unbelievable. I am so disappointed with our society right now. I hope whoever stole these items thinks long and hard about what they did and that their conscious gets the best of them. Best Regards, M. Gilbert North Manchester, via e-mail
