It wasn’t the game.

Jay Sartori still followed baseball from afar after leaving the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays. He still kept up with the names that felt familiar and looked at the numbers that kept evolving. He still considered himself a baseball guy.

If it was any specific thing that made him think twice about the hardest decision of his life, leaving major league baseball to work for Apple in 2013, it was spring training.

“You start to get that bug, and I knew that might happen, and it subsided,” Sartori said recently. “But the second time through spring training, when it hadn’t subsided, I realized that perhaps this isn’t going to go away.”

It didn’t, and now Sartori will be back at spring training for his first season with the Tigers as senior director of baseball operations, overseeing the analytics department with director of baseball operations Sam Menzin. Sartori joined the organization this off-season after working for Apple’s App Store in both the sports and entertainment division and business operations the past two years.

“It’s such a crazy successful environment, and there’s so many bright people there, you just learn so much,” he said. “It’s a very different place. They have a very different view on how to achieve success.”

Sartori got his baseball break by landing an internship with the commissioner’s office while working as an investment banker — “after I kind of had that George Costanza moment that, ‘Yeah, I want to work in baseball,’ ” he said. He began his foray into baseball analytics like many others, by reading “Moneyball” and “Baseball Prospectus.”

He worked in the labor department of the commissioner’s office in 2005-09. He spent a season as director of baseball operations with the Nationals and three as an assistant general manager with the Blue Jays. He was instrumental in building the Jays’ analytical database and worked closely with director of analytics Joe Sheehan.

When a friend told him Apple was hiring, his curiosity took control. He is a self-proclaimed Apple “fan boy,” with any number of iPhones and iPods and MacBook computers in his collection.

“I think working in baseball for so long, you’re always curious as to whether your skills can translate outside of the industry,” he said. “So I kicked the tires, thinking they wouldn’t have interest in me. But surprisingly, they did, and kind of one thing led to another.”

In the sports and entertainment division, Sartori worked with names like Netflix and Hulu and major professional sports leagues to develop their applications for Apple products like the iPhone and iPad. In business operations, it was about monetization and trying to make the apps as successful as they could be.

But in the back of Sartori’s mind, there was always baseball.

“It was the most difficult decision I’ve made in my life, not even close,” Sartori said. “It was terribly hard, and I knew I may never have an opportunity to work in baseball again. And I had to be comfortable with that, but it was hard. …

“I think (working at Apple) really made me realize just how much of a passion I had for baseball just being away from it. That was the most important thing.”

Sheehan saw Sartori agonize over the decision to leave baseball and figured he would come back eventually.

“If I had to bet on that day, I would’ve bet that way,” Sheehan said. “He loved baseball too much not to get back.”

But Sartori wasn’t so sure baseball would take him back.

“I was always concerned,” he said. “I know there are so many smart people in the industry that work so hard and are trying to advance their careers, I wasn’t sure that, ‘Hey, he decided to walk away …’ And honestly, until I got the offer to come back, I was never sure that I could get back.”

He got that offer this winter from the Tigers, and now, at 36, he is carrying the confidence of success in Silicon Valley to Detroit, where he will start putting shape to the analytical infrastructure Menzin started building last season.

This winter, the Tigers added three staffers in analytics, led by Sartori, who brings a broader sense of leadership after experience in a different environment.

“I think working in baseball for so long, you’re always curious as to whether your skills can translate outside of the industry,” he said. “It gave me confidence. I believe I did a good job there, and it gave me the confidence I had the ability to succeed in baseball and outside of baseball.”

Sartori spent time with Phillies general manager Matt Klentak at spring training the past two years — around baseball but not part of it. He missed it like Sheehan always thought he would.

“I thought he almost needed to see how much he needed to miss it,” Sheehan said.

He missed the competition, the game, the daily grind. But nothing made him feel it like spring training and the new beginnings and nice weather. All baseball, all the time.

“It’s everything that’s perfect about baseball,” Sartori said. “It’s just a really good time of the year. Those were the most difficult times for me.”

And they will make him appreciate the best of times this spring.

Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.

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