Ballpark tragedy reinforces message

My first thought was of that scene in "Field of Dreams," the one when Ray conjures up the courage to ask the ghost of his father that dab-your-eyes question: "Hey ... Dad? You wanna have a catch?"

I don't know why that vision came to me so quickly when learning about the death of Shannon Stone while I was sitting in a restaurant at Lake Tahoe on Friday night. It just did.

Josh Hamilton was on a television screen trying to make sense of the senseless. Trying to explain the unexplainable. Trying to discover the proper words that put tragedy into context. They don't exist.

Maybe the moment in one of history's best baseball movies struck me because Stone and his son Cooper never will again play catch, never get to break in that new glove Dad bought the little guy on their way to the Rangers game, never again enjoy one of life's most treasured and timeless acts. Maybe because my father and I never played catch.

It's a bad day in my life when words escape a writer, when you could stare at a laptop screen for hours and never discover the proper way to describe something so terrible.

There is no good in this, no lesson to be learned, no silver lining behind such dark clouds of despair. A father takes his 6-year-old to a ballgame, and his son's favorite player tosses a ball to them, and the father falls to his death behind an outfield wall trying to catch it.

I want to put those parents from the Little League teams in Colorado who were charged with assault and disorderly conduct this week for brawling during a youth tournament in a room and have them watch replays of Stone plunging downward over and over until they can't watch anymore.

I want them to see little Cooper in his red hat and red shirt, that new glove firmly planted on his left hand, watching as his father fell 20 feet headfirst into concrete.

I wonder, then, how important that umpire's call they were disputing would mean. I wonder if beating the hell out of each other in front of their children would seem worth it.

I want answers to questions I know don't exist. I want to know why this happened to a firefighter, to a man who spent his professional life rescuing others. I want to know why a little boy would be left with such a memory. I want to know why the player who tossed the ball was Hamilton, who perhaps more than any athlete has fought scores of personal demons.

"I don't know all of the answers to everything, but I have a relationship with God," Hamilton said when discussing Stone's death. "It's changed my life. In some ways, I feel like I was picked. In a lot of ways, I feel like I was picked because in my situation I just happen to have faith. My family's handled it well also. It's been tough, but we've talked through some things, and we've prayed a lot."

I want to understand the fascination with catching a ball at a game and yet realize there is perhaps no greater American souvenir. It almost happened again during the All-Star Home Run Derby on Monday night. Another fan almost plunged to certain serious injury and perhaps worse. His friend and brother caught him before the man toppled over the railing. He was more fortunate than Shannon Stone.

It has been written that there are two kinds of people -- those who loved "Field of Dreams" and those who have no soul. I would say a similar thing about Shannon Stone. There are those who grieve his loss today and those with no heart.

I haven't been able to shake it and didn't know the man or his son or his friends and family. I just know that on Sunday afternoon, shortly after my daughter's all-star softball team won a tournament at Lake Tahoe, the players were able to push all of their coaches into the chilly water.

And as I waded back and forth and laughs echoed throughout some of the most beautiful scenery on earth, I found my son in the water and hugged him tightly. And then I found my daughter and did the same.

And for some reason, I thought about Shannon Stone and little Cooper.

Maybe there is a message in this particular death, or at least a reminder, one we have heard time and again and yet resonates now with his passing.

Hug your kids.

Embrace each moment.

Have a catch.

If anything can come of such a horrible occurrence, let it be that.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.