Stadium break-ins plaguing Nationals

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Twelve cars belonging to Washington Nationals players and employees were broken into early this week at RFK Stadium, with a black Cadillac Escalade owned by outfielder Marlon Byrd stolen out of the gated parking lot.

Marking another embarrassing miscue in an often-difficult assimilation of baseball this season into the operations of the 44-year-old stadium, the luxury cars were vandalized in broad daylight Monday while the team was in Pittsburgh preparing to play the Pirates. The players' parking lot, surrounded by a locked, chain-link fence, is periodically monitored by RFK security. But the lot, located on the east side of the stadium, does not have a regular guard stationed there.

While Byrd's Escalade was the only auto stolen, other players and employees suffered theft of contents of their cars such as golf clubs, credit cards and global positioning system navigation devices, as well as broken windows, damaged locks and cracked steering columns.

"[This happening to] a major league baseball team in Wash ington, D.C., after September 11? It makes no sense," said an extremely upset Byrd. "There was major league security when I was in [Philadelphia]. You had a guy sitting out there the whole time."

Officials for the DC Sports & Entertainment Commission, which manages RFK Stadium, said they are now planning to install extra security elements such as an electronic gate and additional video cameras.

"Unfortunately we're not immune to these types of things in the big city," said Tony Robinson, sports commission spokesman.

Team sources said another RFK break-in happened at the car of a Nationals coach earlier this season. Some elements of the latest auto break-ins were first reported by Comcast SportsNet.

"There's a lot of unhappy people in this locker room," said outfielder Ryan Church, one of the affected players.

Nationals officials, predictably irate at the security lapse, plan to meet soon with the sports commission to address the issue and will help pay insurance deductibles and other related expenses to the affected players.

"We're going to do everything we can to make them whole on this," said team president Tony Tavares. "I don't want them going out-of-pocket to make their repairs."