By Saturday night, the members of New York's Finest Baseball Club will be be back home in the Big Apple, a place where neighbors look out for one another and people respect respect private property.
It'll be a relief to escape from Dallas, where the team of New York City cops awoke this morning to find that bats, gloves, cleats, uniforms and other equipment belonging to seven players had been stolen from their rented vehicle while it was parked at the Marriott Suites Hotel Market Center.
Discovery of the theft meant their 10 a.m. game against the Dallas Heat (Dallas Fire-Rescue's squad) for the championship of a week-long charity tournament had to be postponed.
Dallas PD discovered some but not all of the equipment abandoned at a nearby apartment complex. Jose Vasquez, a retired New York cop and the team's manager, tells The Dallas Morning News the team is scouring pawn shops in search of the rest.
Dallas Heat manager Scott Mills says the team is "saddened by what took place, and hope that whoever is responsible realizes the pain they've caused and decides to come forward."
He notes that the NYPD squad last came to Dallas in 2011 to play a benefit for a firefighter's ailing son. There are tentative plans to play the game at a tournament in Charlotte this September or next July at the Police and Fire World Games.
DFR spokesman Jason Evans reports that another department team, DFD Smoke, offered to lend their equipment for this morning's game.
"Understandably, NYPD declined as the impact of what happened had taken a significantly emotional toll," Evans says.
Nice one, Dallas.
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