The former President of Ripon’s Babe Ruth baseball league was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly embezzling an undisclosed amount of money from the organization that he headed. 

Dale Keith, a 47-year-old Ripon resident, was arrested at his home by Ripon Police after an investigation into the league’s finances led to the discovery that there was money missing from accounts. 

It was the Ripon Babe Ruth Baseball and Softball Executive Board that had reached out to authorities back in September after an internal audit revealed the discrepancies, and Ripon Police Department Detective Jared Huevel worked closely with the board during the months-long investigation that concluded on Tuesday. 

No booking information for Keith was available on the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office website. While his name appears in the list of people who were booked within the last 24 hours, Keith was ultimately released. No other information about future court dates was available. 

The news of his arrest, and the subsequent posting of the information by the Ripon Police Department on its Facebook page, generated quite a bit of buzz amongst the community – with some comments asking for the public to wait for all of the information to come out, reminding people that he’s innocent until proven guilty, while others condemned his actions as the “worst” that somebody can be accused of. 

Several commenters pointed out that Keith had previously been an upstanding member of the community, and several made mention of the fact that he fostered children with special needs and adopted several of them into his family. Another commenter essentially lobbied to pull people away from Ripon Babe Ruth and into a new Ripon Little League that is not yet off the ground. 

It is not yet known what the revelation and the subsequent financial fallout will be for the organization, or whether competing interests in Ripon will have an impact on participation for the next baseball season. 

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.