It was planted overnight, between the pitcher’s mound and home plate.
Thats an expensive prank. I looked into getting a tree that big for my yard. Quite costly and a bobcat is needed to lift it and lower into the ground. I had to settle for a three foot tree and wait several years for it to grow tall.
I can sort of top that.
Many years ago I got a California Sequoia (“giant redwood”) seedling from the CA state fair, and kept it in a pot. It survived, barely for several years but couldn’t grow much with it’s roots so constrained. When my boyfriend at the time bought a house, I planted it in his backyard. The funny bit was this was a very dense neighorhood where the houses were “zero lot line” homes, which meant that one side of your house was the “fence” for your neighbor’s back yard. One side of each house was exactly ON the lot boundary.) The back yards were also small, with no space between you and the house directly behind you (like an alley).
Once my little tree realized that it no longer had a straightjacket on, it BOLTED to the sky. It grew 4 - 5 feet that first year and a little more than that again the following year. I broke up with him and moved away after that, but it amused me thinking about all those homes dwarfed under the shadow of this ginormous tree. 
They should have left it there so that pitchers could work on their curveball.
I’m picturing the arraignment if they ever catch who did it.
“Your Honor, we request remand for this defendant. An acorn was found in his/her pocket when he/she was arrested.”
A conifer would have done a better job of hampering the course of a pitched ball.
I don’t see any tire tracks anywhere around it. Never underestimate the ingenuity of people who want to play pranks.
No tire tracks and no leftover dirt. That’s what impressed me. And, say, is that an Ash?
Trees this big are not easily portable or concealed. I’m not a tree whisperer, but I’d guess the weight of that tree to be around 700 pounds, including the dirt on the roots, which plants (heh!) it in the “Yes, but it’ll take about six strong guys to do it” category.
What’s more impressive is that it almost looks like they did this by helicopter. There’s no appearance of dirt scattered around, vehicle tracks or even footprints.
Jack.
25’ tree is probably around 3.5" to 4" in trunk size. Grabbing a nursery catalog behind me, that’s $200-$300 wholesale depending on the type of tree. You can move it with a two wheeled tree cart but digging the hole is a bitch for a prank.
That tree is 10’ on a good day.
Still, it’s a great prank.
Yeah, imagine if they had expended that much effort in doing something useful, like planting a tree in a useful location.
This kind of pisses me off because I do volunteer work for a organization that plants and tends street trees in San Francisco, and while you would think that everyone would want a nice tree in front of their house, lots of people feel like it would be too expensive or too much trouble, or some other excuse. I’d love to have been able to afford a tree that size.
The Larch
I hope whoever removed the tree took their time and made sure it was replanted. Its a living thing and deserves a home somewhere. Maybe at the edge of the ballpark to shade the stands?
I’d like to quick-dry-cement a fifty-foot marble obelisk on the center circle of a basketball court.
What might have been more fun is to put it deep in center and see if they’d just play around it.
No reason iit can’t be transplanted to a useful location.
Am I the only one who thinks the branches are about 5’ too close to the ground?
As in "cut off tree at ground level, drill hole, insert top of tree in drilled hole, fill and run?
Or: very elaborate stake in the ground.
Like the flagpole in Minute Maid Park, which is planted on a hill in center field and the area surrounding it is in play.