Headlong pursuit of baseballs in the stands can have tragic consequences, but the lesson continues to go unheeded

I've got this old college buddy, stable guy, family man, conservative, churchgoing, careful.

Several years ago at a major league baseball game, the danged fool fell out of the stands trying to grab a foul ball.

Barry McCoy leaned far over the railing along the third base line at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, in hopes of grabbing a foul grounder. He missed the ball and tumbled four feet down to the grass, landing on his back, lucky he didn't hit his head.

I still don't understand why he would take that chance. He said I still don't understand.

"You get caught up in the moment, you've got a chance to grab that trophy, you have to go for it," he said.

Recently at the same location, another fan was not so fortunate.

Shannon Stone, a veteran firefighter and family man, fell 20 feet to his death at Rangers Ballpark last week while leaning out of the stands to catch the toss of a foul ball from Texas outfielder Josh Hamilton.

The tragedy saddened everyone, but taught nothing. Four days later, during Monday's home run derby at the All-Star game festivities in Phoenix, fans were still willing to risk paying the ultimate price in hopes of catching a $12.99 ball.

There was the guy in checkered Bermuda shorts who lunged to catch a ball just before falling into a swimming pool less than five feet deep. There was the guy in the polo shirt who wrestled a ball from the clutches of a woman while both tangled on a concrete floor.

Then there was Keith Carmickle, the guy who reached too far in attempting to catch a homer by Prince Fielder and was left dangling 20 feet above the pool deck before his brother and a friend pulled him to safety.

An understandably overeager dude chasing his first homer? Not quite. It wasn't even his first home run ball of the night.

''We caught three balls and I told the guys I was going to go for the cycle," Carmickle told the Associated Press. "Dude, they were really holding on to me."

On the day of Stone's memorial service, fans were still treating the cause of his death like some misguided test of manhood, and you wonder when they will learn.

C'mon people. It's just a ball. It's just a moment. Neither are worth the risks that are often taken to acquire them.

"People go crazy, they're not thinking properly, they see something free and they have to go for it," said Aaron Tung, a New York advertising executive.

Tung is in this story because several years ago in Oakland, he coaxed a third-out ball from outfielder Jermaine Dye. The toss was made, Tung caught it in his bare hands and . . . boom.

''All of a sudden I was surrounded by people hitting me and shoving me and grabbing at the ball," he recalled. "My glasses were knocked off my face and crushed. I was really battered around."

He didn't give up the ball. He couldn't believe that nobody apologized or asked if he was OK. He blindly made his way back home. Yet if he finds himself near another batted or thrown baseball? Tung said he would be the one leaping on the dog pile.

"I'd throw some elbows, I would elevate, I would get right in there," he said. "That was the only ball I caught, and I would like to get a chance at another one."