Heartbreaker: Man Dies Trying To Catch Foul Ball For Son

This one is just awful. A man took his young boy, maybe six to eight years old, to a Texas Rangers game last night. They had some pretty great seats. Front row out in left field. Someone hit a foul ball out there and the father asked Rangers left fielder Josh Hamilton to toss the ball up to him for his son. This is pretty common. Well, Hamilton tosses the ball up and as the father goes to catch it, he loses his footing and tumbles over the rail and down some 20 feet. At first it just seemed like a terribly bad fall. He wasn’t able to stand up but as the EMT’s took him off the field, he was conscious and asking them to look after his boy who was in the stands alone.

But as they took him to the hospital, he went into full arrest and was pronounced dead upon arrival.

I can’t even imagine.

The man is one Shannon Stone, aged 39. He’s a 39-year-old firefighter from Brownwood, Texas.

There’s an additional sadness to the news that it was Hamilton who tossed the ball. He’s had his own demons to deal with already, battling one of the more serious drug addictions in Major League Baseball.

Below is a video of the tragic incident. I can’t even imagine what this must be like for the boy and the man’s family.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0nA-X-5MKA?version=3]