"That love can get lost in the work. You spend so much time bemoaning the business, the media, the things about the baseball industry that are necessary topics but which are far from that field and those upper-deck seats and the voices of Phil Rizzuto and Bill White. You watch the games you're supposed to watch, and at that, pieces of them while taking notes or catching up on news or other peoples' opinions. The game becomes work -- great work, fun work, to be sure, but work -- and the distance between you and the game grows. The marriage grows stale. You love, but maybe you're not in love.
"Then October 7 happens, and you fall all over again."