EDITOR'S LETTER

Mark Wystrach got me thinking about baseball. It wasn't anything he said. It was a shirt he was wearing in a photo on Instagram. On the front was the outline of a diamond framed by eight names: Cooper, Gantner, Yount, Molitor, Simmons, Oglivie, Thomas and Moore. They were the starters for the Milwaukee Brewers in the 1982 World Series. Mark was only 2 then, so I figured the shirt was something he'd picked up somewhere."The response to that shirt has been amazing," he told me at 2 in the morning, as he was helping feed his infant daughter and looking ahead to a show in Boston - Mark, who hails from Sonoita, is the lead vocalist for the Grammy-nominated juggernaut known as Midland. "I found the shirt a few years ago at one of my favorite vintage haunts in Austin."

One of the names on the front of his shirt was my boyhood hero. Although I was raised by a pack of Cubs fans, the North Siders never really interested me. And I wasn't into baseball. Not until the summer of 1974, when an 18-year-old phenom named Robin Yount became the starting shortstop for the Milwaukee Brewers.

"He could do everything," Bob Uecker says. "He never stopped hustling. He was what a ballplayer is supposed to be." My friends and I ... we all wanted to be Robin Yount. It's how kids today feel about Mallory Pugh and Morgan Brian. Everyone needs a hero. Mine played baseball. And so, I collected cards, saved my money for pennants and posters, and dreamed about going to a game at County Stadium. I never made it, though. Not as a kid. The closest I ever got was my transistor radio. Things are different now. Now I live in Arizona, where spring is marked by Mexican goldpoppies, margaritas by the pool and Major League Baseball. If I can find the time, I can see the Brewers 32 times this month.It's spring training in Arizona, and the Brewers are one of 15 teams that come to the desert every year to get ready for the summer. They play in a brand-new, $60 million ballpark in Maryvale. The other 14 teams play in places just as nice. Baseball is big business in the Valley of the Sun. According to the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU, the Cactus League contributed $644.2 million to the Valley's economy in 2018. That's what Titanic grossed at the box office. And it's almost four times more than Taylor Swift made last year. It's also a number no one could have imagined in 1951, when there were only two teams in Arizona: the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees. The Indians had been here before. For the Yankees, however, it was their first visit. An unlikely venture orchestrated by the team's owner. A Phoenix-based building contractor named Del Webb.

By that time, Mr. Webb was already rich and renowned - in 1946, he built Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Buying the Yankees with Dan Topping was just another transaction. "The chance came along and I went for it, strictly from a business standpoint," Mr. Webb told Jerry McLain, who wrote about the resident oligarch for our February 1951 issue.

"He bought a half-interest in a baseball team he'd seen on the playing field only once,"

Mr. McLain wrote. "They say the Yankee Dynasty, with all its trappings, was purchased for $2,850,500. That included the sprawling Yankee Stadium, and all the farm clubs."

The scheme to bring the Yankees to Arizona involved a "trade" with the New York Giants. Like the home swap in The Holiday, the two teams would switch places for spring training, with the Yankees coming to Phoenix and the Giants going to St. Petersburg, Florida. Although Del Webb and Horace Stoneham were good friends, the owner of the Giants was reluctant.

"We have found Phoenix ideal for spring training, and, frankly, I hesitated a long time before agreeing to this arrangement," Mr. Stoneham said. "The training field at Phoenix, the weather and the wholehearted support of the Phoenix people have exceeded our fondest expectations in each of the four years the Giants have trained here. At the same time, I have always appreciated that Phoenix is Del Webb's home town, and that he is eager to show off his team to his neighbors and friends. To that extent, it was a pleasure to accede to his request for the transfer. I do want to emphasize, however, that the Giants will be back in Phoenix in 1952."

And they were, but not before the Bronx Bombers and their manager, Casey Stengel, made headlines in the desert. "These, then, are the Yankees who are coming to Arizona in full force," Mr. McLain wrote: "Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Hank Bauer, Gene Woodling, Yogi Berra, Vic Raschi, Johnny Mize, Ed Lopat, Jerry Coleman, Joe Page, Billy Johnson, Allie Reynolds, Cliff Mapes, Bobby Brown, Tommy Byrne and little Billy (The Kid) Martin."

Of those Yankees, six are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. They're there with Robin Yount, who was elected in 1999, in his first year of eligibility - 25 years after becoming my boyhood hero. Although I don't get to see Rockin' Robin play anymore, I have so many great memories. I also have a vintage 1982 World Series T-shirt with his name on it. Mark Wystrach gave it to me. It's something I'll treasure forever. Thanks, brother. I'll see you in Sonoita.