For me, baseball is the most nourishing game outside of literature. They both are re-tellings of human experience.
Well, the whole story is in the book, but the short answer is that I was the first information architect in an organization that was traditionally design-oriented, and I felt I needed a tool to help me gain the trust and support of my colleagues.
The town, the team, it's a family. That has helped. For some people who have had to deal with some of the problems I have had to deal with don't have football as an out.