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PHOENIX (AP) — The ball arching against Chase Field’s bright
lights, Keith Carmickle climbed up on a narrow table, leaned
forward and lost his balance, momentum carrying him toward a
20-foot fall to a pool deck below.
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Had it not been for the quick reactions of his brother, a friend
and a handful of fans Monday night at Major League Baseball’s
All-Star Home Run Derby, Carmickle might have suffered the same
fate as Shannon Stone, the Texas Rangers’ fan who died Thursday
night trying to catch a ball thrown into the stands.
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“I thought: I’ve lived a good life,” Carmickle said.
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Seated in a small section of seats above the right-field fence,
Carmickle, from Kingman, and his group had already grabbed home run
balls by Robinson Cano and Adrian Gonzalez, and were looking to add
another to their collection when Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder came up
in the second round of the derby.
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Trying to snare a towering shot by Fielder, Carmickle stepped up
onto a metal table about 18 inches wide and reached down for the
catch. He missed the ball, which hit the wall several feet below
him, and the momentum carried him forward, headfirst over a short
railing.
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Carmickle was headed for a hard landing when his friend, Aaron
Nelson, grabbed his legs and his brother, Kraig, grabbed him around
the arms. The crowd above and below gasping, Carmickle dangled
briefly over a deck where a couple of cameras were positioned
behind Chase Field’s pool before his brother, Nelson and a few fans
pulled him back to his seat.
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The near miss was eerily similar to what happened to Stone, the
39-year-old memorialized in Texas earlier Monday after falling 20
feet to his death while trying to catch a ball thrown into the
stands by Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton.
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“He tried to catch it, I grabbed his legs and his brother grabbed
his arms,” said Nelson, who, along with Kraig Carmickle, is from
Chandler. “So when he went over the ledge, we pulled him back. He
wasn’t going down, I was holding on.”
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The Carmickles and Nelson gathered themselves after the close call
and let out a few shouts before breaking into high-fives. They
relived the moment with a few of the fans around them, then again
as they looked at photos taken by an Arizona Republic photographer,
who had shots from behind of Carmickle standing on the table, then
falling.
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They spoke with security personnel a few minutes later and were
allowed to remain in the game, with Carmickle putting his arm
around a security guard who told him to be careful before he walked
back to his seat.
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“I stepped up on the table, I missed the ball by 2 or 3 feet and
went over,” he said. “We caught three balls and I told the guys I
was going to go for the cycle. Dude, they were really holding onto
me.”
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Fielder didn’t notice the close call and continued his turn in the
derby.
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“I didn’t see it,” he said. “We don’t need any of that.”
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