Cooper Stone, 6, hugs Texas Ranger Josh Hamilton after throwing the first pitch before a playoff game on Sept. 30, 2011, in Arlington, Texas
It was a shocking tragedy, born of an innocent act: a big leaguer tossing a baseball into the stands so that a dad could give a gift to his son. On July 7, Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton lobbed a foul ball into the crowd at Rangers Ballpark. He left it a tad short. Shannon Stone, a firefighter from Brownwood, Texas, whose young son was seated next to him, leaned over to snag it, only to fall over a railing, down 20 ft., headfirst, onto concrete behind the outfield wall.
At first, Stone was conscious, and before being taken to the hospital, he even asked that someone check on Cooper, his 6-year-old son. But soon after, Stone, 39, went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. He died within an hour, of blunt-force trauma.
In the aftermath of the deadly accident, there seemed lots of blame could go around. Blame the Rangers: on two previous occasions, fans had fallen over railings and broken bones. The railings should be higher (and, indeed, after the World Series, the team will raise the barriers). Blame Hamilton, a man who has already battled alcohol and drug abuse, and now had to cope with this guilt. He should have put more mustard on that throw. And yes, maybe Stone could have been more careful.
But instead of threatening the Rangers with litigation, which would have been an understandable response, the Stones did something unusual: they tried to comfort them. Stone's widow Jenny and his mother Suzann sent handwritten notes to both Hamilton and the Texas team's president Nolan Ryan. "I thanked them for their kindness to our family," says Suzann. "But I especially wanted to write to Josh Hamilton and tell him not to feel like it was his fault in any way. I said, 'You know, what you did, you were just trying to make a memory for his little boy.'"
"At one point they talked about not letting them throw the ball into the stands," Suzann says. "I said, 'Please don't do that. Please keep throwing those balls.' Because, you know, that will be such a memory."
The Texas Rangers, who enter Saturday night's Game 3 of the World Series tied with the St. Louis Cardinals at 1-1, are still playing ball with heavy hearts. But if the Stones aren't holding a grudge against the organization, how can anyone else? And even if you fault the Rangers for the tragedy, you can't deny their class in the aftermath.
In August, with the blessing of the Stone family, the Rangers announced that they will build a bronze statue in Shannon's honor. The statue will depict Shannon and Cooper at a game, and stand outside Rangers Ballpark. "I just got to thinking about what we can do to memorialize Shannon," Ryan told TIME from his St. Louis hotel room a few hours before the start of Game 1 of the World Series. "We didn't want this accident to just pass. The statue, to me, represents what we strive for as an organization — families and sharing memories."