A fan is held by his feet as he tries to reach for a home run ball in the outfield bleachers during the Major League Baseball All-Star Game Home Run Derby in Phoenix, Arizona, Monday. — Reuters BROWNWOOD, Texas — Shannon Stone loved joking around with his pals. He loved giving nicknames to his colleagues. And he loved being a fireman, the job he'd wanted since he was a kid. Yet what this tall, smiling 39-year-old loved most were baseball and his family, especially his 6-year-old son, Cooper. So the fact Stone died while taking Cooper to a Texas Rangers game — and, worse still, while reaching to catch a baseball thrown by the boy's favorite player, Josh Hamilton — was hardly mentioned during his memorial service Monday. Instead, the focus was on how much joy he brought to so many people, and he was laid to rest with all the formality of a firefighter who died in the line of duty. “They really, really captured the essence of what he was — a really good guy with a good sense of humor,” said Johnson County Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Russek II, who knew Stone for more than 20 years and worked with his father and brother. “He cared about people, like a true servant.” More than 1,000 people filled the First United Methodist Church, the majority of them firefighters, police officers and other emergency workers from across Texas. After an hour-long service that Russek described as having “probably more laughter than tears,” the officers lined up in rows for an emotional procession to the cemetery eight miles away. A lone bagpipe player was first, followed by a firefighter carrying Stone's helmet. Next came six men carrying Stone plain, wooden casket, folded flag on top. More pallbearers held the rest of his equipment: his firesuit, boots and jacket. Everything was loaded onto a fire truck and began, with Stone's widow, Jenny, walking hand-in-hand with Cooper.
