***4 STOLEN JUGS PITCHING MACHINES***

[meximilt88]

My name is Gregg Aguilar and I am the Head Coach at Mary Star High School and am also a coach for the Firecrackers 18U-Clarke. Along with Rolling Hills Prep High School, the So Cal Waves and other Firecrackers teams we share the San Pedro Softball Complex. Sometime between 7pm on Tuesday night and this morning, somebody broke the lock on our front gate, went straight to our small container that housed some of our equipment including 4 JUGS pitching machines, pried that lock open and stole all 4 machines. All 4 of these machines were purchased through the fundraising efforts of the Firecrackers and So Cal Waves, along with donations from the respective High Schools. Unfortunately we do not have the serial numbers for the machines, but would greatly appreciate it if all the HeyBucket members could keep your eyes and ears open for people who may be pushing to sell one or more JUGS machines quickly! I know this is a shot in the dark, but hope that the more awareness we can create will reduce the avenues which this person can score a few bucks!

Thank you all in advance for your help!

Gregg Aguilar
Firecrackers 18U-Clarke/Mary Star High School

[VCHS]

Sorry about your machines, alert all the Play it Again Sports and keep an eye on Craigslist. A couple years ago my daughters bag was stolen and ended up at Play it Again in New Port Beach. They stalled the guy long enough for the PD to show up.

[coachEd]

Yes, keep an eye on ebay and Craigslist. This was very prevalent around 2003-2004. Many schools and rec leagues where being broken into and having equipment stolen. It just so happened that I was in charge of equipment for a So Cal rec league and we had 2 twin-pitch machines stolen. A couple months later, I saw one of them being used at a high school 2 miles away, and I could positively identify it as our stolen machine. The coach said she bought it on ebay and the sheriff was able to connect the ebay sale to the owner of play-it-again-sports in Orange. We found out that guy had sold over $65,000 worth of pitching machines on ebay in about a 2 month time frame. The owner of PIAS agreed to cooperate with the sheriff and they tracked down the person breaking in and stealing them and he was arrested and plead guilty. The sheriff searched a storage facility owned by that guy and found 25 more stolen machines, including a $5,000 Home Plate machine from UCLA. They put the machines on display in Santa Ana for anyone who got ripped off to come and try to identify it.

If there is a way to identify your machine, keep an eye out for it. The criminals might think this is easy money, but the above proves they can be caught. But worse yet, they are really hurting the kids that use and need the equipment.