A non sequitur

About halfway through a 200-page book I edited on the 1962 baseball season, the following came straight out of left field like a Roger Clemens fastball:

I started worshiping The Holy Bible instead [of the Baseball Almanac], directing my admiration not for Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays or Don Drysdale, but for the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Huh?" I thought. The author, in the midst of putting his baseball opus together, apparently had a religious or spiritual moment. Or perhaps those words represented some sort of confession. I let it pass without a query.

Forgive him Father, for he has sinned.