Fan Falls to Death at Rangers Game

A fan fell to his death at Rangers Ballpark last night after trying to catch a foul ball tossed his way by Rangers left fielder Josh Hamilton. Witnesses say 39-year-old Shannon Stone, a firefighter attending the game with his young son, asked Hamilton for the ball then went headfirst over the railing and fell 20 feet to the ground after the outfielder tossed it to him. He hit the concrete behind the out-of-town scoreboard, ESPN reports.

The man was stretchered out of the stadium and died in hospital a few hours later. "I tried to grab him, but I couldn’t,” the fan who was seated next to the man says. “I tried to slow him down a little bit. He went straight down." The area where the man fell was out of sight from the field. Players were told about the incident after the game. "Josh is very distraught over this, as the entire team is," team president Nolan Ryan says. (More baseball stories.)