UTV Stolen From Edison High School Baseball, Softball Teams

A Tulsa high school baseball and softball teams have more work on their hands after someone stole a shared utility vehicle.

It's a huge blow for the Edison Preparatory teams. Without this piece of equipment, every bit of field maintenance normally done by a machine has to be done by hand.

Raking and maintaining a baseball field by hand is tedious, hard work. But it has to be done on both the baseball and softball fields every single day.

Coach Ty Gunter said having to manually drag the heavy spikes across the dirt and clay is a particularly unwelcome new task the team is forced into after the loss of their John Deere Gator utility vehicle.

“If we weren’t able to spike drag the field and get ready for regionals next week we would have to be stuck inside," he said. "To be able to get outside especially at a time like this during the season is super important."

The thief cut through two chains on two layers of fence and drove the gator right out of its shed and onto the street early Tuesday morning.

Dean of Students Jake Falvey said the gator carried water, fertilizer, spikes - whatever was needed to repair the field. "Now they've got to do things by hand, that one piece of equipment, that one gator saves hours," he said.

It won't be cheap to replace. The cost of a new Gator can range anywhere from $7,000 to $15,000.