I don't know where the loyalty lies in baseball. You really don't have to protect each other much, unless there's like a bench-clearing brawl. In hockey, it's important that they look out for each other. ↗
I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating. ↗
Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet. ↗