Aug. 19, 1948

In life, Babe Ruth filled Yankee Stadium. In death, he fills St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Three days after he died of throat cancer at the age of 53, St. Patrick's is jammed to capacity as 6,000 mourners attend Ruth's funeral mass. Heedless of the intermittent heavy rain, there are another 75,000 outside the stately church in midtown Manhattan. It also was estimated that between 75,000 and 100,000 had filed by Ruth's coffin in the past two days as he lay in state in Yankee Stadium, known as "the House that Ruth Built."

Among those attending today's mass, presided over by Cardinal Spellman, are Joe DiMaggio, Jack Dempsey, Connie Mack, Hank Greenberg, Leo Durocher, Mel Ott, several of Ruth's former teammates, New York Governor Thomas Dewey and New York City Mayor Bill O'Dwyer.

After the mass, Ruth is buried in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., 30 miles north of New York City in the highlands of the Hudson River.