SURPRISE, Ariz. | The weather is perfect behind home plate, where Royals scout Art Stewart charts every pitch. He has a radar gun to his left, several different color pens in the cup holder and a clipboard on his lap. Royals pitcher Kyle Davies fires a 92-mph fastball over the outside corner.</p><p>&#8220;How about Davies today?&#8221; Art says. &#8220;He&#8217;s really pounding the strike zone.&#8221;</p><p>Art is telling a story, a wonderful story, a remarkable story, but he keeps getting interrupted by baseball. That&#8217;s how his life has been, of course, baseball and life weaved together like words and music. He&#8217;s 81 years old, and he&#8217;s been scouting ball almost his whole life. He does not tell a story that does not have a little bit of baseball in it. And every moment of baseball reminds him of a story.</p><p>&#8220;It was the year I was scouting a young pitcher named Jim Bouton,&#8221; Art says. &#8220;You know, Bouton won 20 games for the Yankees one year, he&#8217;s the guy who wrote <em>Ball Four.</em> I signed him, I remember, over Thanksgiving, it had to be 1958. Yeah, I signed him Thanksgiving of &#8217;58.&#8221;</p><p>The next month, December of &#8217;58, Charles de Gaulle was elected president of France. Tris Speaker, the great center fielder from the baseball days before the Depression, died. The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in the NFL championship game that many still call the greatest game ever played. And on New Year&#8217;s Eve, Art Stewart took Rosemary to see &#8220;My Fair Lady&#8221; at the Schubert Theater in downtown Chicago. Art still pronounces it Chi-CAW-go, the way a Windy City native does.</p><p>&#8220;Take a look at this guy,&#8221; Art says, suddenly, and points out to the field, points out at Derrick Robinson, a Royals outfield prospect. The Royals are playing the San Francisco Giants, and it&#8217;s a lazy afternoon, and Surprise Stadium is about one-third filled, and even the few hundred people in the park are not really watching the game. Art is watching though. Even as he tells the story, he watches.</p><p>&#8220;Take a look at that young guy because he is the future center fielder of the Kansas City Royals,&#8221; Art says. &#8220;Oh, he&#8217;s going to be something special. He can do it all. He can run. He can throw. He can play you one hell of a center field. Oh yeah, he&#8217;s really got something. It&#8217;s exciting to see a player like that.&#8221;</p><p>He marks something down on his charts, and he goes on with the story.</p><p>Art had met Rosemary at a big Lutheran church in Chicago. She was quite a bit younger than him &#8212; he was 31, she was only 19 &#8212; but there was a beautiful chemistry between them, that thing couples used to call &#8220;the flame.&#8221; When &#8220;My Fair Lady&#8221; ended, as the bundled mass headed out into the streets, Art asked Rosemary to marry him. She said yes. They set a date. They had the invitations made. They reserved the church. They tried to rush into their marriage and a life together before their senses took hold the way young people in love do.</p><p>And then, one day, a month before the wedding date, their senses took hold. Rosemary knew she was too young to get married. Art knew that he needed to live a baseball life, he needed to be on the road, chasing baseball talent, and it was no life for a young bride. They decided, technically, to put off the wedding for a while. But they both knew what they were really doing. They were breaking up.</p><p>Six months later, Art Stewart was at a ballgame, and he saw another scout making a move on a beautiful young woman. He heard the woman spurn him by saying, &#8220;There&#8217;s only one team, and that&#8217;s the New York Yankees.&#8221; Art worked for the New York Yankees at the time. He stepped in.