I wasn’t watching the Rangers game last night. I was watching my Chicago Cubs fall behind 8-0 in the sixth inning against the Washington Nationals. The Cubs had never, in their 135-year history, rallied from such a large deficit so late in a game on the road to win. That’s a record of 0-576, ESPN says. The team is having a lousy season, and I very nearly flipped over to something else rather than once again face disappointment. But some inner voice compelled me to stay with them, and my faith was rewarded. Six runs in the sixth, another two in the seventh, and a final victorious score of 10-9. I was so pumped by the win that I took to Twitter to honor the rookie second baseman who’d delivered the winning RBI.
After informing the Twitterverse that I would now name my firstborn either Darwin Barney, or Barney Darwin, I glanced over at my feed. That’s how I learned about the tragic accident in Arlington last night. My joy evaporated and suddenly seemed very small. As ridiculous as it is, I even felt a measure of guilt for my own celebrating.
We can go back to cheering our team soon enough (I’m actually headed to Rangers Ballpark tonight), but it seems appropriate to spend time with the grief we all should be feeling for Shannon Stone’s family this morning, especially for his 4-year-old 6-year-old son who was with him at the game. Lone Star Ball put it nicely:
It was after the game had ended, where we got to see Derek Holland have a great recovery from his worst performance of the season, when he heard the news. Shannon Stone was dead.
I had a flashback to all the memories I experienced with my father and how much he meant to me. And to know this boy will never get to have these moments with his old man makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t know what kind of man I am today without my father. My mom was damn good at her job, but there’s a special bond between father and son that is different, one that’s deeper.
Not only that, but to watch your own father die in front of you, at such a young age? I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
It’s moments like these that sometimes make sports and the act of following a team feels so trivial. It was just a few hours earlier I was cursing out Derek Holland for a four pitch walk.
But that means nothing. What does matter is that there’s a young kid sleeping right now, and will wake up without a father in his life. I hope the Rangers do the right thing and donate a large sum of money to this family. But that can’t replace Shannon Stone. I only hope someone good in the kid’s life can act as a father figure to him. Someone who will take him to games and cheer him on as he runs the base paths. Someone who will give him a pat on the back after a bad game.
Someone who will just be there.
29 comments
My office just got super dusty.
Im right there with ya M… I just emailed my dad letting him know how much I love him; Everyone should send their old man a quick text or email today and let him know how much he means to you. I dont know where Id be today without my dad cheering me around the bases
It’s a horrible tragedy no matter how you cut it and when you look at problems in society, way too many can be traced back to boys who grow up without dads.
Having said that, I don’t see why the Rangers should make any donation or why that’s “the right thing.” In fact it sets a precarious legal precedent and implies a certain amount of liability that the less scrupulous would likely abuse later.
The fact that it would set a “precarious legal precendent” says a lot about our sue-happy society.
I hope the Rangers establish a fund for Mr. Stone’s family so us bleeding hearts (and perhaps even a few Rangers employees) can make a donation.
The “less scrupulous”? I understand if you think that society is too litigious, but what is someone going to do — encourage a relative to fall over the rail and die in the hopes of getting a “large sum of money” from the Rangers? Use your head. Of course the Rangers will donate money in some form or fashion, whether it’s starting a scholarship in the father’s name or in a lump sum to the family.
Parker, no but slip and fall artists will certainly consider it a toe-hold.
“I hope the Rangers establish a fund for Mr. Stone’s family so us bleeding hearts (and perhaps even a few Rangers employees) can make a donation.”
Absolutely.
I really like Trey when he puts on his Mark Davis pants, so cute.
If you have two serious accidents because of the design of your railings then it seems the responsible thing to do would be to install some preventative measures to prevent a third, maybe fatal accident.
I know. Trey and Mark want to make it all about the personal responsibility. It should also be about corporate/personal responsibility.
It would have cost the Rangers a small fraction of what this is going to cost them in real and imagined dollars to have installed a catch system that would have prevented last night’s fatality. But someone or someone’s in their organization argued that the risk of a fatality was so small that it was irrelevant.
That someone and or someones will continue to be paid keep their jobs, visit their families, watch a son become a man and a father. An irrelevant won’t.
Even someone as dumb as myself could design a net that wouldn’t spoil the experience of the game at the ballpark while insuring that if a perfect storm caused by adrenalin and excite and the design of the existing hand rail wouldn’t result in a fatality and all it entails.
I think the unscrupulous persons in this tragedy are the someones that either couldn’t or wouldn’t anticipate not only a problem, but a solution before it happened.
Watching the video multiple times gave me insight into this tragedy that I didn’t have when I first watched it. This man’s actions were not exactly out of the bounds of normalcy. A ball was tossed to him, and like any person he reached out to catch it. Had it been tossed higher, he would have easily caught it. Had it been tossed much lower, he would have known it was beyond reach and let it go. But this was right in between those two zones. He reached out, but the railing was barely higher than his knees, so while he expected it to give him some leverage it obviously did not, and he lost his balance.
I think the railing was too low for what the team knows will be fans occasionally reaching over to catch balls like this, when there’s a 20-foot drop below. This is compounded by the fact that it’s already happened twice before, with very serious injuries resulting.
Horrible tragedy. The Rangers need to do a total safety analysis regarding the height of their railing in light of the two incidents which have occurred in rapid succession.
They should have done an exhaustive analysis after the first guy fell, but I doubt they did as the team was in bankruptcy.
Sheeple will say what they will about the so-called “litigous society” jargon thats been fed to them by insurance companies and big business, but without such lawsuits, we’d all be screwed.
If the design is that inherently dangerous how come there have only been two such incidents out of literally millions and millions of fans doing far stupider things over the course of the years?
“Sheeple will say what they will about the so-called “litigous society” jargon thats been fed to them by insurance companies and big business, but without such lawsuits, we’d all be screwed.”
Alternate version:
“Sheeple will say “without such lawsuits, we’d all be screwed” — a line fed to them by big trial lawyers and ambulance chasers.”
Think lightning strikes Trey, perfect conditions coming together for the one in a kazillion event, think Japan’s nuclear catastrophe.
The railings shouldn’t be raised in my opinion. That height is the standard and for good reason. Changing that as a knee jerk reaction is the corporate way, they’re like BB’s in a boxcar on rough tracks.
All it would take would be a net system that isn’t obvious and a distraction for the fans. A six foot horizontal net designed to capture a flying fool would suffice. It would make for good youtube videos and the damage would be more to the ego than to life expectancy.
They do it on ships, heck, I did one for a hospital helipad twenty years ago in Plano. It’s proven technology. It works.
There are two reasons why it isn’t in place at the Ballpark. The biggest one is the kinds of folks that deal in only the numbers will never have a problem with imagination.
The second one is the same kind of mindset is what makes an accountant. So they plugged their ears when it came to adding another cost for something that will only happen every five or six years. They opted to fix it with a sign saying “it’s your fault”.
““Sheeple will say “without such lawsuits, we’d all be screwed” — a line fed to them by big trial lawyers and ambulance chasers.””
I’m confident that if you looked for a box to put me in the last place you would consider is in one labeled “sheeple”.
The lawyers are only method for standing a chance against corporate malfeasance.
It sure as heck isn’t our government. And it sure as heck isn’t the folks using the term “sheeple” to define others.
Personal responsibility isn’t a term we need to use to explain silly or stupid acts by people. It should also be applied to those who abuse the system to enrich themselves.
Harvey, I was turning the sheeple card on the la bon mot named Brad Sham, who played it. I only meant to show how ridiculously narrow an accusation he was making by making the same in reverse.
May God have mercy on the Stone family. May the ‘Father of all comfort’ comfort them and hold them close to Himself. And may many relationships father-son, mother-daughter, grandpa-grand-daughter be changed for the better and have more love than ever because of this tragedy. In Jesus Name, Amen
“All it would take would be a net system that isn’t obvious and a distraction for the fans. A six foot horizontal net designed to capture a flying fool would suffice. It would make for good youtube videos and the damage would be more to the ego than to life expectancy.”
That’s pretty much a textbook example of attractive nuisance.
AKA an irresistible challenge for the drunks.
“Hold muh beer and watch this…”
I have small grand kids, big ones too for that matter. When I saw that online this morning my heart fell. Probably the best thing my daughter did was pick such a wonderful young man to father her children. I could see him doing the same thing and uttering the same words as he was dying.
He’s a Cowboy Stadium/Ballpark kind of guy. It hit real close to home for me.
I’m off to finish the Taj of chicken coops. If you ever want to study people I suggest watching chickens for awhile.
If it isn’t too hot I’ll probably stalk some grasshoppers, chickens like grasshoppers, kinda sorta like a hen on a bug kind of thing.
Did you really start a blog post about the death of a fireman with four paragraphs of nonsense about yourself? Grow up.
“Silly” is an apt moniker. He was attempting to put sports into perspective when compared to “real life”. I got it.
This was a preventable death.
That bothers me the most. Mr.Stone’s actions and the result were a predictable event. Mr. Stone got caught up in the moment and made a mistake, something that could happen to just about anyone. That mistake cost him his life and it shouldn’t have.
What won’t happen is the minutes from Ranger management’s discussions after the last fall won’t be made public. Those voices who advocated leaving things as they are when it comes to the design of the railings should be held accountable, at least in the court of public opinion. That would define personal responsibility for those so enamored with the term.
Strap on your imagination. Think about a piece of metal, the very same 1 1/4 inch pipe they use for the hand rail, bent in an arc for four feet out. That arc could be easily retrofitted to the existing railing posts, literally a slip on attachment. Then steel cables are run through those arcs from end to end of the railings on four inch center spacing. You have a horizontal hand rail that would catch anyone falling over the railing. It would not be expensive and it wouldn’t have a negative affect on the fan’s experience at the Ball Park like a fatality does.
Brownwood is a small town and being so remote (the closest city with a population larger than Brownwood is Abilene and it’s 90 miles away), the community has to rely on each other. Having lived there, I know this tragedy will be a deep wound in the community. But there are a lot of great people in that community and the town looks after one another. Along with the fact that Mr. Stone was a firefighter which is another tight brotherhood, I feel confident that there will be mentors and father figures in the child’s life.
“something that could happen to just about anyone. ”
Then why is it it’s happened twice out of the literally tens of millions of people who have visited the Ballpark — to the tune of odds on par with winning the lottery?
Trey, our Gov. Perry needs your services badly.
Let’s say the Rangers play half of their games at home. That’s eighty or so.
Let’s say that of the seventy thousand (guess on my part)seats there are a thousand that could present a problem, those facing a rail and with fifteen feet or so free fall space.
Now let’s put into the equation rail height versus fan height and weight distribution. For a fan to fall over the handrail the amount of weight above the handrail is important. Short people, pear shaped people, etc and so on are not as likely to fall over the rail going for a foul ball etc as a tall chest heavy in shape male would be.
So out of a thousand seats we would have maybe, what?, forty or fifty potential fallers?
Now kick into the mix attitude and alcohol etc. Of those likely fallers how many do you think are the kind to risk life and limb on a whim? A foul ball for the kid kind of whim type let’s say.
We are now down to the odds of let’s say Perry having a successful run for the Presidency, with you and your skills of course. He has zilch of a chance without someone with your creative number skills.
So some dipsquat in a suit looks at your numbers and shrugs his shoulders, “odds are in our favor”, he says.
Would you want him in charge of your 401K?
Installing a barrier like I have proposed could run from $25,000.00 low to $50,000.00 high at this time. Probably no more than $10,000.00 when the stadium was built.
How much do you think this tragedy is going to cost the Rangers?
It isn’t just the Ballpark btw. Fans falling over hand rails is a common issue at stadiums.
Common sense would be a better solution. The rails are seven inches higher than regulation requires.
Give it up. This is ambulance chaser territory.
Are we still being sensitive and pretending anyone could could be so stupid as to dive towards a railing and not know they’re doing something fatally stupid?
Trey, I’ve never been to the Ballpark. But I did notice something interesting in a picture of it.
We know without attending the meeting that there was one about making a catch fence like I’ve described after each accident and probably two or three during design and construction. It’s just one of those meetings the architects and engineers have because there’s always someone like myself that throws in stuff that gums up the gears.
Anyway I looked at the picture at the stands from the field. Everything became clear.
Look at the advertising below the handrails.
This tells us two things about Ballpark management.
The first thing is they value the almighty advertising dollar more than they value the safety of their fans.
The second thing is they either didn’t listen to the smart engineers or they were too cheap to hire the smart engineers.
The catch fence wouldn’t interfere with either advertising if it was engineered correctly. We’re not only talking about blocking the ads, but also making maintenance of the ads difficult.
As for the railing height. You might want to ask yourself why the handrail on your balcony, any balcony is forty two inches, UBC, Universal Building Code. But the one at the Ballpark only has to be thirty.
Why is it the architects and engineers have to use the 42″ code for the landing two feet above the ground and only 30″ at the Ballpark with the potential for a thirty five foot fall?
I don’t see this as an ambulance chasing attorney feeding frenzy. I see it as free money for lawyers.
That’s because the management of the Ballpark will pay off before they allow any discovery to take place. There were those meetings after all……….
That’s now how those ads work. They’re not fixed. Also, just learned the Ballpark has immunity, so it’s moot.
Immunity? Really?
I’ll bet the hole against the donut that they don’t have immunity if it can be shown they were negligent. Again, liability releases etc are toilet paper. If it’s something besides the same old crap it won’t hold up.