Fandom can be all consuming; when I get into something, I tend to go all in. I have so many obsessions — from the well-known Beach Boys album Pet Sounds to semiobscure Orson Welles films to fully obscure poets — that I wrote a book about them. (”Fan Mail: A Guide to What We Love, Loathe, and Mourn”)

But enthusiasm, like the dome of the Rogers Centre, can both enclose us and then slowly, quietly recede. I used to love the currently ascendant Toronto Blue Jays, until suddenly, without noticing it, I didn’t.

Blame middle age and maybe also children. When I was in my twenties, in graduate school, I fell into the near-daily habit of following the doings of the Jays. I had fond memories, of course, of the back-to-back World Series wins. (I even had a photograph of my adolescent self with ico

See Full Page