CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro Tri-State :: Major league Dumpster diver

White Sox slugger Jim Thome and dozens of other Major League Baseball players were victims of a Far West Side man who allegedly stole their financial records from trash containers outside their sports agent's office in the north suburbs, police said Wednesday. David Dright, 38, was charged by the Lake County state's attorney's office with identity theft and ordered held on a $250,000 bond. He was arrested in connection with 27 Lake County residents who are not Major League Baseball players.

It's not clear whether Dright was able to gain anything of value from the purloined information, police said. Investigators said they were attempting to contact more than 80 baseball players whose financial records also were found Tuesday in a raid on Dright's home. "I have spoken to Mr.

Thome," Lincolnshire Police Detective John-Erik Anderson said. "Naturally he was shocked and concerned. He's been very cooperative.

Whether he [Dright] was able to obtain anything monetarily, we don't know." Dright -- who received court supervision for retail theft in 1988 and filed for bankruptcy in 2002 -- once worked as a loan processor but is now unemployed, said Anderson, who investigated the case with Detective Adam Hyde.

Dright is accused of diving for records in trash bins outside Northbrook-based SFX Baseball, whose Web site says the agency represents more Major Leaguers than any other firm -- including new Chicago Cub Alfonso Soriano.

Police and federal agents executed a search warrant Tuesday on Dright's apartment in the 5200 block of West Chicago Avenue and seized his computer and file folders containing personal information for hundreds of people, Anderson said. The search uncovered records for former Cubs center fielder Juan Pierre, New York Mets outfielder Moises Alou and 80 to 100 other Major Leaguers, authorities said. Anderson said he does not think Dright specifically targeted baseball players.

"I don't believe he got into the Dumpster because he knew what the business [SFX] did," Anderson said. "I think he just got lucky." Dright stole tax documents, investment portfolios, credit reports and other personal information belonging to more than 80 Major League players, Anderson said.

He came to the attention of Lincolnshire Police in November when a resident in the Lake County suburb filed a complaint with the department. The 60-year-old man showed police a letter from a credit card company saying his application was approved. He told the detectives that he had never applied for a card from the company.

Police discovered that Dright's address and cell phone number were on the application -- and Dright admitted that he applied for a credit card using the 60-year-old man's information, Anderson said. Anderson said he suspects Dright went through SFX Baseball's garbage recently, but he thinks Dright had been targeting other victims for as long as 10 years based on records found in his apartment. "He would look up deceased children who died within a year of being born, then apply for credit cards using their information, too," Anderson said.

Anderson said he did not receive an explanation from SFX Baseball why its clients' records were not destroyed before they were discarded. Patrick Rooney of SFX could not be reached for comment. Lincolnshire Police were assisted by the U.

S. Secret Service and U.S.

Postal Inspection Service, Anderson said.