GREAT CATCH: Keith Carmickle is caught by his brother and a friend after he almost fell headfirst to a pool deck about 20 feet below while trying to catch home run ball hit by Milwaukee's Prince Fielder during Major League Baseball's Home Run Derby.

A US baseball fan has been narrowly saved from plunging to his death by friends who grabbed his legs, in a near replay of a fatal fall at a game last week.

Keith Carmickle had climbed onto a narrow table near a railing in the spectator stands of Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona at Major League Baseball's All-Star Home Run Derby on Monday night as a ball was struck by one of the players.

Carmickle leaned forward to reach for the ball, lost his balance and started to fall towards a pool deck six metres below.

But his brother, friends and a handful of fans reacted quickly, grabbing his legs as he tipped over.

"I thought: I've lived a good life," Carmickle said later about what was going on in his head at the time.

"I stepped up on the table, I missed the ball by 2 or 3 feet and went over.

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

With the crowd above and below gasping, Carmickle dangled over a deck where a couple of cameras were positioned behind Chase Field's pool before his brother, his friend Aaron Nelson and a few fans pulled him back to his seat.

"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."

The near miss was eerily similar to what happened to Shannon Stone, the 39-year-old Texas Rangers' fan who fell six metres to his death last week while trying to catch a ball thrown into the stands by a Rangers player in Texas.

A memorial for Stone, a firefighter, was held on Monday.

- smh.com.au, AP