November 30, 2001 -- Patrick Byrne was fond of joking that he was "the ultimate man" - an ace firefighter, a peerless center fielder, master handyman and canny prankster. But his friends swear he was no egomaniac - he just liked to poke fun at himself, his firefighting brothers and, especially, his nephews and nieces. Byrne, who died while saving lives at the World Trade Center Sept. 11, didn't find time in his crowded life to have any of his own kids. As one of his closest buddies at Staten Island's Ladder Co. 101, Ray Diaz, said at a memorial service yesterday: "He was 39 but acted like he was turning 18 - he loved life." The youngest of nine children, Byrne treated his large number of nephews and nieces like his own kids, taking them on shopping trips to Manhattan or to the movies and entertaining them with his impish brand of humor. "He'd always tell us, ‘You can have anything you want, anything at all - as long as it's under 5 cents,'" one of his nieces, Colleen McMahon, recalled yesterday. She said another of his favorite lines was: "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do everything the same - I'd just play different Lotto numbers." "Of course, he would have shared every cent with all of us," McMahon told mourners at St. Thomas' Church, on Amboy Road in Staten Island. At the firehouse, Byrne, ever the prankster, was regarded as the "king of buckets." "You'd never stay dry around Patty - but I'd do anything to have him make fun of me today," said Diaz, who teamed up with Byrne at the Fire Academy in 1994 and was then stationed with him at Ladder Co. 101.

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