The fruits of a fundraising effort on behalf of the Free State High School baseball team – 12 large metal pennants used to decorate the school’s baseball field – went missing sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Free State supporters were surprised to make their way to the baseball field Saturday morning, one day after the River City Festival baseball tournament ended, to discover that 12 large banners attached to the backstop fence representing each Sunflower League team were gone.

“I don’t think they had been up two weeks,” said Free State athletic director Steve Grant.

The pennants, which were about 4 feet by 2 feet, were suspended with heavy-duty zip ties about 25 feet off the ground.

They had been purchased with money raised from local businesses and donors in a recent fundraiser.

Mike Hill, Free State baseball coach, said they were purchased to make the drab high school baseball field look nicer.

“Our facility is so terribly lacking and such an eyesore and when you have people work so hard to try to spruce it up and have something like that happen, it’s definitely disappointing,” Hill said.

Both Hill and Grant estimated the signs altogether cost about $2,000. Grant said he notified the school’s resource officer; no police report was available at the Lawrence Police Department on Saturday.

Hill said removing the 12 secure banners could not have been an easy task.

“Whoever did it obviously put a lot of effort and time into it,” Hill said. “That’s not something you do in 15 minutes.”