Go to the ballpark and catch a foul ball: It's what every fan wants to do. And so it was for 6-year-old Cooper Stone. He and his dad even stopped to buy a new glove on the way to the Texas Rangers' game Thursday night. Even better, their seats were in the left-field stands, shouting distance from Cooper's favorite player, reigning AL MVP Josh Hamilton. Maybe, just maybe, he would throw one their way. In the second inning, he did. Hamilton grabbed a foul ball that ricocheted into left field, and tossed it into the stands. The boy's father, 6-foot-3 Shannon Stone, caught it, tumbled over a 33-inch-tall railing and plunged 20 feet onto concrete below, right in front of his son. The 39-year-old firefighter died a short time later at a hospital. “That's what they were there for, was to catch a ball,” Shannon Stone's mother, Suzann, said. “Cooper loves baseball and he's a big Josh Hamilton fan. Had his jersey.”
