Little league press box set on fire

EAST LYME, Conn. (WTNH) -- The East Lyme Little League is coping with the loss of their complex's press box which went up in flames this weekend. A homeless man is charged with setting the fire and a lot of expensive equipment inside could be hard to replace.

"You look at the fence here, the integrity of the fence I mean that's leaning forward. I don't know if these other poles will have to be replaced but this center pole will definitely have to," Dave Perry of the East Lyme Little League said.

Assessing the damage, the head of East Lyme Little League says when the press box went up in flames so did a lot of equipment stored inside and a lot of community effort which built it.

"I've taken a lot of pride myself in the care of the complex in trying to continually improve it so to see that yeah it was disheartening," Perry said.

Dave Perry's sons play baseball on these fields which are home to the girls softball teams too.

It didn't take long for investigators to figure out who may have set this fire. A bicycle which was pretty burnt was found in the rubble. It belongs to a man, a homeless man who is well known to police.

45-year-old Gary Nelson is now charged with arson.

"He was just kind of in a frustrated mode and decided he was going to have a little revenge inside the press box of the little league field," Fire Marshall Dick Morris said.

But the folks who will have to pay are the ones who worked to build these fields of dreams in the first place.

"Fortunately the homeless gentleman didn't lose his life. We can rebuild this structure but it's going to take us some time and some effort. We're going to have to do some fundraising most likely," Perry said.

They will again work closely with the town.

"We need to go through our insurance company and then also go through the permitting process to rebuild it and stuff so it's not an easy fix," Dave Putnam of the East Lyme Parks and Recreation said.

But one they hope to hit out of the park by spring.