Baseball Philosophy: Who Butters Your Bread?

Two things about Baseball:

1) My beloved Red Sox ended last year's season with historical failure.

Historical.

To make matters worse, they sent Terry Francona out the door wrapped up in a salacious slander campaign that ultimately tainted job interviews and prevented him from managing elsewhere this year. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I wondered why I choose to support a crooked organization.

but Now we are far removed from September, time goes by and life happens and Winter happens and one day you look up and there are real live Baseball Players playing baseball down in Florida and your mind realizes the Winter is almost over, and considers the Promise & Potential and warmth of the coming year...

also the beautiful ghosts of games past:

2) like when my Dad and his buddy O.B. and a tiny snotty kid version of me are coming up into Fenway we pass a musician busking and Dad gives me a buck and I get amped being able to run up close and toss it in his case and he's singing the lyrics but squeezes a "thank you" awkwardly in there and then keeps singing and I think that sounds a little sloppy so I ask why he would stop singing just to say thank you and O.B. says

"Because he knows who butters his bread. Joey, you have to know who butters your bread."

I wasn't sure what that meant until years later.