INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- It's Opening Day for the Kansas City Royals this week and little league baseball teams are just starting their practices.But things are getting off to a rough start for the Queen City Baseball Association in Independence after they discovered a break-in Friday to the equipment s torage container at Mill Creek Park. Kansas City Public Schools looking for voters to approve $474 million bond The thief or thieves stole dozens of baseballs and t-balls, but also a pretty expensive machine they use to pitch to younger players. Players age 7-8 in Independence's Queen City Baseball Association machine pitch division were getting into the swing of things at a practice Monday, minus one integral piece of equipment. "It was last Friday when the machine was missing,. We didn't know what happened it was just like crazy for us," Abbie, 7, said. "When he said it was missing I was like what?" another player Alexandria, 8, said. A storage container at the field held about 50 baseballs, 40 t-balls, and tees and a Jugs machine and extension cords to pitch to hitters. "They got this lock off, but obviously they broke this latch," league President Bryan Hutton said examining the storage container that is now just filled with empty boxes. "Then we're like who could've just stolen our machine, we had a white round machine now our machine was brown, rusty and weird looking," Abbie described Friday's practice. Yes, the league has an old used machine at its disposal but Hutton said it's not particularly safe for players. "The wheel is wobbly, it doesn't throw the ball straight," he explained. Of course in the interim, sometimes neither do all the coaches. But they are doing their best without that equipment for now as they work on plans for about a $2,000 replacement. "We're all here trying to learn the game of baseball trying to have fun and you just stole one of the main pieces of equipment to get them to learn how to get ground balls and try to hit the ball," Hutton said. At an age when these kids should be learning the fundamentals of stealing bases, innocence stolen too. "Whoever does that I think they should stop doing that and stop trying to steal people's stuff. Stealers are rude!" Abbie exclaimed. Kansas City Royals announce new ballpark food beginning Opening Day 2025 "In my opinion this is stealing from the youth of Independence," The youth impacted have just have one request of the thief. "Please can you bring it back?" Alexandria asked. The theft was posted in an Independence community group over the weekend where people inquired about donating. Hutton said league officials plan to meet with Queen City's Board of Directors soon to see if they want to accept donations to replace the equipment or just use money from their emergency funds.  ...read more read less