MONTCLAIR, N.J. — As Spencer Ross, a longtime metropolitan New York area sportscaster, crossed North Fullerton Avenue after a memorial Mass for Yogi Berra, he was approached by a small gray-haired woman.
The woman, 56-year-old Mary Anne DeVarti, had come to stand with dozens of others behind barricades on the sidewalk across from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, where a private service was offered Tuesday morning in the town where Berra resided for more than half a century.
DeVarti, from Keyport, N.J., in Monmouth County, about an hour’s drive south of Montclair, told Ross that she had long wanted to meet Berra — whom she admired so much — but never had.