The story begins with a full bottle of wine and an email, fired off from a small city in Italy. It ends with the bottle cashed and a plan hatched and family headed for a baseball adventure in a place called Padova.
If you have lost track of Mark Teahen in the years since his baseball career ended — eight since he suited up for the Royals, five since he last appeared in a major-league game — well … this is actually all pretty normal.
It is a Thursday afternoon in March, and Teahen is sitting at a high-top bar table inside Sorso Wine Room, the Italian-style wine bar he and his wife, Lauren, opened a year ago here in Scottsdale Quarter.