This is just depressing.
Shannon Stone is the Texas Rangers fan who lost his life after falling to his death trying to catch a foul ball for his son, Cooper in 2011. Since then, the Rangers erected a memorial in his honor, with a statue of he and his son, and a tribute to all Rangers fans.
A photo of the trashed memorial circulated around twitter on the day of the Rangers home opener and really put a black eye on the day.
This is the statue of the Rangers fan who fell to his death at the ballpark in '11. Look what people did to it today. pic.twitter.com/zaZgRnMl7W
— Kami Mattioli (@kmattio) April 1, 2014
The Rangers have since issued the following statement:
“The Rangers certainly regret and apologize for the trash that accumulated on the Rangers Fans statue at the home plate gate this afternoon. With thousands of opening day fans, many of whom had been tailgating, entering the park in the 30 minutes before game time, large amounts of cans, bottles, and other items that are prohibited in the park, accumulated at all entrances. Numerous clean up calls came into the maintenance department in this period, and the club utilized a large number of employees to continually remove the vast amount of trash that was accumulating. The debris on the statue was removed in a timely manner but it should not have been allowed to be placed there in the first place. The Rangers Fans statue is a cherished component of Globe Life Park in Arlington and the club will make certain this situation does not occur in the future.”
Time to provide more trash cans for fans entering the park so that this doesn’t happen again.