By far, the worst moment of the 2011 MLB season was when Texas Rangers’ fan Shannon Stone reached for a thrown baseball from the stands in Arlington, hoping to nab a souvenir for his six-year-old son, but instead plunged to his death. In the Sunday Times Magazine, Lisa Pollak of This American Life tells Stone’s story, with the help of the late man’s parents. SuZann and Al Stone. An excerpt:

“SuZann: Well, at that time the Rangers had a third-base player named Buddy Bell. And that was Shannon’s very favorite player, just as Josh Hamilton is Cooper’s player. We were pretty close behind home plate, if I’m not mistaken. Where we were sitting, Buddy Bell hit a foul ball, and it came back over —

Al: There was an upper deck just above us. I remember seeing this foul ball. The wind carried it. The ball went out of sight as it went up above that other deck, and then the wind caught it and blew it back.

SuZann: And it just almost fell right into Al’s lap. Shannon was so excited that he got that ball.

Al: Getting a ball is kind of like the holy grail of baseball. It’s one of the reasons you go, is hoping to get a souvenir of the game, a ball. To be able to catch one from Buddy Bell just made it so much more important.

SuZann: Shannon always kept it on a shelf. He loved baseball. And then it just seemed like when Cooper came along, he just kind of passed that on to Cooper.

Al: They were inseparable.

SuZann: They always sat in the same place, because Josh Hamilton played left field. So they always sat so they could be out where Josh Hamilton was. That’s why they sat there, hoping they could catch a ball. And Shannon was always one of these people that thought he was 10 feet tall and bulletproof. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. I’m sure he thought, I can reach out there, I can get it, I can just stretch a little bit farther.”