Major sports are major parts of society. It's not anomalous to have people who love sports come from other parts of that society.

Collision at Home Plate: The Lives of Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti. Giamatti was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980. The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic (1966)
Play of Double Senses: Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1975)
The University and the Public Interest (1981)
Exile and Change in Renaissance Literature (1984)
Take Time for Paradise: Americans and their Games (1989)
A Free and Ordered Space: The Real World of the University (1990)
A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A.

Angelo Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti (/dʒiːəˈmɑːti/; April 4 1938 – September 1 1989) was the president of Yale University and later the seventh Commissioner of Major League Baseball.