"Hey Dad, Are we gonna get a foul ball?"

“Hey Dad, do you think we’re going to get a foul ball?”

“I don’t know bud, we’ll see if we can.”

That’s a two-line conversation that my son and I have had either when we’re on our way to a game or entering the gates. We’ve been to college games, minor league games, and a few Major League Baseball games and to see the look on his face at the games when we actually got our hands on one of those balls was priceless.

     The avatar for my blog since I began it a year or two ago is a shot of my son and I at an Arkansas Traveler game a few years ago holding two foul balls up that we were able to catch. It was the first day that my son could get out of the house after having a surgical procedure done and so we went to a baseball game.

A guy trip: my son, my dad, and me.
     It’s only a ball. There are several thousand of those made and hit into the stands each year during baseball games across the country. It’s made of leather, it has a core and a bunch of string wrapped around inside that leather.

     But on the other hand it’s more than a ball. It’s a souvenir that represents time that I spent with my son watching a baseball game.  It’s something that fathers and sons have done for years.

     It’s what Shannon Stone was prepared to hand to his son when they were in attendance at a Texas Ranger game Thursday night. The look on his son’s face was going to be absolutely priceless when dad caught that ball from Ranger All Star Josh Hamilton. I know what he was thinking. I know why dad wanted that ball. I’ve seen the expression that was going to be on his son’s face.

     Just three weeks ago my dad, my son and I were in attendance at another Arkansas Traveler game. Sitting in the outfield porch area that is beyond the right field wall and equipment storage area, there was a ball sitting in the cup holder of one of the tractors that was used for field maintenance. As one of the bullpen catchers walked under us, I shouted, “ Hey, what about that ball in the tractor?” He walked over to the tractor, picked the ball up and flipped it to us.

     That look that I mentioned earlier? Yeah, I saw it on my son’s face. If anything could make him happier than the cotton candy that he had just eaten it was that ball.

     It was the same thing that Mr. Stone wanted for his son. You know the story of what happened by now. If for some reason you haven’t heard, you can read it here.  The aftermath of this story has hit people on several levels.

     I saw a tremendous post written by Joey Matschulat of Baseball Time In Arlington. There is a tremendously emotional portion of ESPN Radio’s Scott Van Pelt Show that you can listen to here.  They capture the raw emotion of this event.

     Like Mr. Stone, I have a 6-yr old son who takes a glove to baseball games just knowing that he’s going to walk out of that stadium three hours later with a new ball.

     A ball that the “professional players” actually played with in a game.

     Reading some of the stories and hearing some of the discussion of this story absolutely hit me in the gut Friday. Seeing the picture of the young boy looking over the rail and trying to imagine what in the world was going on in his mind made me hurt.

     And I can’t imagine what those who were directly involved have gone through in the last 24-28 hours. I am a guy four hours away from Arlington who has watched this event from afar on TV and through the computer. I’m not Mr. Stone’s family. I’m not with the Rangers. I’m not any of the family and friends who will have to call on each other for strength as they figure out how to deal with this.

     The internet has been populated with many, many stories, blog posts, and columns since this incident occurred. Like it is for me, writing is cathartic for many. Stories like this hit home because we identify with them.

     It’s hard to identify with many of the sports stories we see and read. We can’t identify with a professional athlete chasing a milestone. Most of us don’t identify with multi-millionaires squabbling over millions of dollars. We don’t identify with celebrities going through issues.

     We identify with fathers and sons. We identify with mothers and daughters.

     That’s what makes this story hit home so hard to me. It’s a story of a terrible twist to a father and a son making a memory that so many of us have made for ourselves. A memory that my son and I have made on multiple occasions.

     God Bless the Stone family and their friends who will have to help them get through this. And may Mrs. Stone and her son feel the strength of their family, friends and the hundreds of thousands of people who are praying for them and pulling for them.