By Tammy Mutasa

LEOMINSTER, Massachusetts (WBZ) -- There's outrage in the Leominster community after vandals targeted Little League baseball fields. Now because of the damage, the young players can't play there until it's fixed because of safety concerns.

Vandals cut the 30-foot-long backstop and ripped out all the padding, which is there to protect the kids. The damage was discovered Monday morning by longtime volunteer coach and league president Rob Lora.

The team had been away in Connecticut this weekend when the vandals struck.

"Something very malicious""They did something very malicious to hurt the kids. They knew that. It was not throwing a cone, they took the action of ripping it apart, ripping it all out and they knew what they were doing," said Coach Lora. "You're not hurting us, you're not hurting the park, you're hurting the kids because they can't use that facility. So, it's heartbreaking."

Instead of hitting it out of the park on their own home field, the Leominster American Little League had to play ball on a borrowed baseball field.

Tuesday night, the game was 40 minutes out of the way in Barre.

"It's kind of devastating, it's for kids and people are just going to go up there and destroy it, I don't know why they would ever do that," said Little Leaguer Rorke Lora.

Now every game in June has to be moved until the backstop is replaced for safety.

"It could take a month to six weeks or more to get them in and now it affects the rest of our season we won't be able to use the field until June and it could affect our districts in July," said Coach Lora.

Thousands of dollars in damageThe price tag too is a curveball for the community, costing thousands of dollars to fix the damage which is estimated between $3,000-$7,000.

But parents and business owners are stepping up.

Melissa Bible started an online fundraiser. "It's frustrating, it's sad, we spend countless hours there," said Melissa Bible. "It restores my pride in my community knowing that the majority of everything is good people."

Good people who hope to be back at the home field to celebrate a little league's hard work going 75 years strong after being established in 1950.

"I just hope it doesn't happen again because it's for the kids," said Rourke Lora.

Police are investigating the vandalism.

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