Vandals Cover Little League Field With Graffiti, Profanity Weeks Before Start Of Season

EATONTOWN, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Just weeks before the start of Little League, vandals targeted a field of dreams in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Nearly everything was covered with graffiti and profanity, CBS2's Meg Baker reports.

"I walked down and the first thing I saw was the graffiti on the buildings over there, pretty severe," Gerard Miller, vice president of the Eatontown Little League, told CBS2.

Curse words and symbols written in red, black, and white were spray-painted on the concessions stand and kids' dugouts at 80 Acres Park off Wall Street.

Miller, who is also the father of two players in the league, came down to the field at around 8 a.m. on Saturday to set up.

"The paint was still wet, you could smell it here in the dug out," he said.

The Public Works Department did their best to scrub and cover most of the vandalism. Police Chief Mike Goldfarb said the criminals struck sometime after 10 p.m. on Friday.

"This is terrible. Our Little League program is fantastic here. It really gets police officers angry. We're big supporters of the Little League," Goldfarb said.

"It was opening day for these kids, big day, they look forward to it," Det. Lt. Theresa Healy said.

The mayor said an arrest was made Tuesday evening after officials searched for the suspect earlier this week.

The Eatontown Police Benevolent Association were offering a $500 reward to anyone with information.

"A lot of times with graffiti artists, they use what they call tag names. A lot of tag names were used in this incident, which leads us to the person or people responsible," Healy said.

The little league season officially starts the first week of April and parents and players CBS2 spoke to say they will not let these negative words and symbols stop them from having a positive season.