Before I Let You Go: My Life in Broadcasting, Baseball, and Beyond: the summary

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1. 1
   HourLife takeaway

   A love of the game is often handed down, one shared broadcast at a time.

   Coverage of the memoir says Mae's father shaped her love of sports, and that she grew up in Toronto in a family of fans gathered around a small TV. HourLife's reading: the passions that last often begin as company. Someone let you sit beside them while they cared about something, and you started to care too.

2. 2
   HourLife takeaway

   Being the only one who looks like you in the room is a real cost, and it also gives you a view the room lacks.

   In interviews about the book, Mae reflects on the challenges she faced as a Filipino woman in an industry traditionally dominated by white men. HourLife's takeaway is not that the strain is a gift. It is that naming it plainly is part of the work, and that the person at the edge of the room often sees what everyone in the middle has stopped noticing.

3. 3
   HourLife takeaway

   How you end is part of what you said.

   The book takes its title from Mae's on-air sign-off, Before I let you go. A sign-off tells people the segment is closing, gives them one last thing to hold and promises a next time. Most of us end conversations, meetings and weeks by trailing off. A line you choose on purpose turns the ending into part of the message.

4. 4
   HourLife takeaway

   Sometimes you have to leave home to grow into the person who comes back.

   The publisher traces a road from the Philippines to Canada, out to years in US sports media, and back to Toronto to cover the Blue Jays. HourLife's takeaway: leaving is not always a break with where you started. Time away can be how you earn the skills and the nerve to return to the place you first loved and do the work there.

5. 5
   HourLife takeaway

   A long career in one craft is really many jobs, learned one after another.

   Mae's path runs through Rogers Sportsnet, NESN, MLB Network, Sportsnet Connected, TBS and the Blue Jays field beat. The craft stayed the same while the role kept changing. Staying with something for decades rarely means doing the same job; it means being willing to learn the next version of it.

6. 6
   HourLife takeaway

   Showing up for the celebration is part of the job, too.

   Among the things the publisher says the book covers are the celebrations on the field after games, Gatorade showers included. HourLife's takeaway: the moment after the win is when people remember who was there. Stay for it, mark it and let the joy count before the next game starts.

7. 7
   HourLife takeaway

   Recognition late in a career is a record of every ordinary day that came before it.

   Mae received the Jack Graney Award in 2025, and CBC reported that she was the second woman to receive it. In 2026 she received the Gordon Sinclair Award at the Canadian Screen Awards. Awards arrive on one night, but they usually stand for years of work that nobody was watching.

Set up once

1. Write your own sign-off line

   Use the sign-off writer on this page to draft one line for the end of your week. Keep it short enough to say out loud without notes.

2. Call the person who gave you your first love of something

   Think of who first sat you down in front of a game, a book, a kitchen or a song. Call them this week and tell them what it turned into.

3. Start a log of the rooms where you were the only one

   Keep a note with the date, the room, what you noticed from where you stood and what helped. Patterns show up after a few entries.

4. Draw your own career rundown

   List every role you have held, in order. Mark the moves that took you away and the ones that brought you back, and see what each one taught you.

5. Name one place you might return to

   Pick a team, a city, a craft or a person you left behind. Write down what you could bring back to it now that you could not bring then.

Keep it up

1. Prepare one question before every conversation

   Before a meeting or a call, write one good question the way a field reporter would before stepping up to a player. Ask it, and listen to the whole answer.

2. Sign off on purpose

   End the last meeting or message of each week with your sign-off line instead of letting it trail away.

3. Watch one game together, the old way

   Once a month, watch a game, a match or a show with someone you love, on one screen, with phones put away.

Take it with you

This whole reading, then the action book: the setup checklist and a page of real calendar days for each habit. Free, and nothing is saved.

Start on

Run it for

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Paper

US Letter A4

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Thank the room, name the next time, then go. A good ending is something you can practise.

That is the end of our reading. Where to go from here, or go back to the full Before I Let You Go: My Life in Broadcasting, Baseball, and Beyond page.