The Goat Pen

Is it just me or are the Latino players' names getting more and more ridiculous? Whatever happened to Pedro and Juan and Jose or Ramirez and Gonzalez and Rodriguez? Now it's Ubaldo and Yovani and Yadier or Volquez and Bastardo and Yuniesky Betancourt.

Fan dies after falling from the stands trying to catch a ball at the Rangers-A's game. Josh Hamilton tossed it up to him and the dumbass catches it, but falls headfirst to his death.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/ne ... id=6747510

The worst thing is, the guy died in front of his young son:

The fan, wearing a blue Rangers cap and white Rangers shirt, was seated in the front row with his young son. According to others seated near him, the man was yelling at Hamilton for a foul ball that was hit by Conor Jackson and ricocheted into left field in the second inning. Hamilton flipped the ball toward the fan and the fan leaned over, caught it and toppled over in the gap between the railing and the back of the scoreboard on the left-field fence.

After the game, the team, including Hamilton, was told what happened.

"I think as any of us would be, Josh is very distraught over this as the entire team is," Ryan said. Ryan added that the Rangers are "very heavy-hearted about this."

That's sad and I bet that ends throwing balls into high stands.

Law suit by widow in 3....2....1....

I hear Dick Williams has died. A great manager, IMO

The Rangers situation sucks. The poor sap wanted a ball, Hamilton did what has been done thousands of times, the guy died in front of his son and AA you are probably right about a lawsuit. And Rat is right about a tradition that will be probably be stopped. Sucks all the way around.

Hasn't this happened before in Arlington? Maybe Dallas fans are just stupid...

Didn't it happen last year?

I think it happened earlier this year in Denver.

Rat -- of course the players shoulder the lion's share of the blame, but some of the coaching recently has me scratching my head. Stubbs attempting to steal second last night with Votto on deck in the 9th? Baker only using Lecure for one inning Wednesday night and leaving us in position where Chapman is the only pitcher left in the 13th if Hernandez doesn't deliver the game-winning hit? Was he gonna pitch Janish? or just blow out Chapman's arm? Gomes instead of Heisey in LF last night? First and Second, nobody out in the 7th and a kid fresh from AAA at the plate and you don't bunt? Then there's Dusty's inexplicable man-love for Edgar Renteria...what looked like a smart baseball team a year ago is starting to look like dumb luck...

Agreed. Dusty has me puzzled.

Hamilton killed one fan last night and tonight he drilled another in the head with a foul ball. This guy's a menace to society!

The guy's a firefighter. I don't see a lawsuit at all.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/texas-base ... d=14030458

Hopefully, you are right, spacer. What made me say that was because the Rangers have had at least a couple of other fairly high profile fan falls:

http://www.jrlawfirm.com/news/fan-falls ... 08.cfm#top

....and I just -last month- read about the lawsuit against the Staples Center because an unattended 2-year-old fell from a luxury box and died.

I should clarify. I would advise any of my former students not to be afraid to take this case. But don't take it on contingency. Make sure they pay you for your time.

One other thing, if there is a pattern of this that give the Rangers knowledge that this is a problem and it's cheap to fix, then they will lose the lawsuit.

the cheap fix was to tell players to quit throwing balls to fans along the rails in the upper deck

that said, I hope there is no lawsuit

Fans usually fall from trying to catch the ball being batted there, not tossed by the outfielders.

usually?

Yes, since 1950, it is recorded that 34 fans have fallen from stadiums in MLB.

22 were trying to catch foul balls/homers
3 were being tossed balls by a player, ball boy or other person on the field
2 fell with no ball being thrown or batted to them
The rest were Astros fans who chose death over having to watch the baseball being played on the field


Kidding aside, I have no stats, but it is my gut opinion that more fans have fallen trying to catch a foul/homer than from when a player tosses a ball up.


You have a different opinion?