Take Me Out To ... The Winter Meetings In Vegas, Baby, Vegas

Art's eyes are a little bit watery now, and you might think it's from the lateness of the night or the emotion of the story or the cigarette haze, but no. He's thinking about Donna. They met at a ball game, of course. Another scout had tried to make a move on her, but he worked for the wrong club. "There's only one team," Donna said. "And that's the New York Yankees." Art worked for the Yankees. He and Donna were married for 47 years.

They were made for each other. He scouted; she traveled with him. He worked the lobbies; she listened for rumors. Sometime in 2007 they were at a game when she said her back throbbed. The doctors said she had breast cancer. She died last February.

Everyone felt sure that Art would not make it back to the game after that. "She was my life," he said, and for the first time baseball seemed empty to him. He did not want to go to spring training. He felt that way for a long time. But then he came back to the game—because he realized that baseball makes him feel closer to her.

"Donna would love this here," he says, and all around him are baseball men drinking and lying and proposing deals that'll never happen. Over the speakers Sinatra sings again; this time it is I Could Have Danced All Night. Art closes his eyes and remembers that he and Donna had seen Sinatra at the Golden Nugget not so many years ago. They had front-row seats. Someone in baseball had gotten those seats for them.

"This is a great town," he says. "And this is a great game." With that, some baseball people wander over to talk deals, and Art Stewart comes to life again.

"Hey," he calls out to me after a while, "how are your feet?" As he mentions it, I realize that my feet are throbbing. I look down and see that Art Stewart is standing on the carpet.