Poster thieves favour baseball over Claudia Schiffer

Baseball fans have stolen 1,500 New York Mets posters from the city's subway, beating previous records for theft of Claudia Schiffer ads.

The baseball posters are being stolen from frames on the New York subway at the rate of 160 a day.

The number far outstrips the last episode of mass pilfering of posters, which featured the German supermodel.

The Mets, who have spent $300,000 on 4,000 posters, have asked the subway company to keep their eyes on the posters still in place.

They were released only on May 1.

Fans of the baseball team have been unscrewing poster frames at stations and lifting the prized poster ads.

They promote Mets games on Fox TV's Sports Net and feature avid fans. They dot the subway and commuter rails around New York.

"This is pretty unbelievable," said Jodi Sinese, executive vice-president for marketing on the city's subway.

The Mets' marketing company says it is at least "taking some pride" in the fact fans love the posters, reports