'A Giant Who Did Not Behave Like a Giant'

During the July 19 funeral service for Hector Figueroa, a longtime friend, Steve Giles, recalled that the building-service-workers-union president had persuaded the president of the New York Yankees to place a plaque of Nelson Mandela commemorating his 1990 visit to Yankee Stadium in Monument Park.

The request seemed a long shot, Mr. Giles told the gathering of family and friends in the Guida Funeral Home in Corona, Queens, since, with the exception of three Popes who had conducted services at the Stadium, the plaques were devoted almost exclusively to people directly connected to the Bronx Bombers, from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of their early glory years through the eras of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and longtime owner George Steinbrenner.