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A Bronx tale: Ruth. Gehrig. Mantle. Jeter. Ohlendorf? All of Austin, and Texas, is waiting to see if one of the newest New York Yankees earns his 'stripes.

Article Excerpt
In the spring of odd-numbered years, I generally use this space to write about Texas politics--about the inevitable failure of the Legislature and especially the leadership to do enough for the public weal--and I never lack for material. But so much has already happened at the Capitol this session (see page 35) that it's been a tad unrelenting, even for a junkie like me. I needed to get away from it all for a few days, and I decided that the ideal destination was Florida, where I could witness another kind of hardball in action. The real kind.

I've been a devoted baseball fan since the age of 8, but I'd never been to spring training. When I heard that a 24-year-old pitcher from Austin named Ross Ohlendorf would be taking the mound for the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox on March 12--a kid trying to make an impression in the middle of one of the greatest rivalries in sports--I knew I had to be there. As the father of a former high school ballplayer, I'd heard of Ross, whose exploits as a prep school and Ivy League athlete were well-known to baseball parents. And, as an aficionado of the game, I knew that Ross had recently been traded to the Yankees as part of a deal that had sent an aging Randy Johnson to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

And so, on a breezy afternoon, I found myself heading south on Interstate 75 from Tampa, on the way to Fort Myers, where the Red Sox were hosting their mortal enemies. It was a two-hour drive to the old ballpark downtown, near the...

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