The rest of the baseball wives, those who took more care with their real-estate acquisitions, they love their Arizona houses. Melissa Moyers has twenty thousand square feet. Lisa Putney sprang for the Italianate countertops in the kitchen but also in each of her five bathrooms. For some, if they’re being honest, Scottsdale is their first-choice residence. Sure, there’s the cache of Malibu, the glint of Hollywood celebrity, but they prefer the clear desert sky to the gritty sunsets of Los Angeles. In L.A., they have to compete with basketball and hockey wives, the Dodgers and the Angels, Hollywood execs and Japanese tourists just to make a reservation for dinner. The pro-Arizona subset comes to visit for a week or two in October, maybe the month of November. Just for the change of pace. If there are no kids or if the kids are away (in Melissa’s case, one’s already in college, a fact she doesn’t like to admit because it makes her feel o-l-d; the other two are so programmed in their extracurriculars she’s lucky to get two meals with them all week), the trip’s an easy midweek jet or a leisurely drive through the desert. Sure, Phoenix is sprawling, but compared with L.A., Scottsdale is a dense nugget of goodness. The wives are perched close to the edge of civilization—five minutes from the south entrance to the preserve—but downtown Scottsdale (everything from the dry cleaner to the gym to Terrazzo, the poolside dance club that is good enough, now that they’re married and just flirting) is fifteen via their preferred livery. They love their Arizona cars, champagne-colored Lexus SUVs and shiny black Bimmers, but there’s no reason to look for parking downtown, to risk driving drunk (Melissa got caught once, in 2005, eighteen months’ probation, and it was a cautionary tale to them all), when their sometimes drivers are a text message away. They can even pick their preference: Lincoln Town Cars, Cadillac Escalades, stretch Hummers. Their usual Friday night driver, Anton, a chatty transplant from Venezuela, said the service had had a traditional limousine, but they’d put it out to pasture—sold it to a funeral home in Mesa—because no one ever asked for it.