If you are of a certain age, as I am, then you grew up in an era where gender stereotypes were very much the norm. Little girls played with dolls. Little boys played with cars. Mothers passed down to their daughters a love for cooking. Fathers passed down to their sons a love of sports. Scream aloud if you must. Do so understanding of course that your screams shall never be loud enough to drown out history. It is what it is because it was what it was.
Of course, even broad stroke stereotypes proved inapplicable in certain factual scenarios. For instance, a little girl could be born into a family where her father's love of baseball would never have a male heir to claim it as his inheritance. Sorry to shatter the misapprehension of all those who believe "Girl Dad" is a concept you 21st Century hipsters invented. Feel free to take credit for inventing the term since as society has learned, people under a certain age are incapable of simply experiencing something without hanging some half-ass sobriquet on it. Know, however, that girl dads existed long before "Girl Dad" did and shall continue to exist long after this particular flavor of the month is designated for assignment onto history's scrap heap.
Thomas Eves was a girl dad. He and Helen had no sons. Their only child was their daughter, Lisa. Thomas Eves, an otherwise intelligent and reasonable man, had a deep-seated, profound, and (I would submit inexplicable) love for the Baltimore Orioles. Although he had no son to whom he could teach this love, he nevertheless had a child with whom he could share it. He had Lisa.
Lisa and I have been friends for twenty years. She is as passionate and as articulate a baseball fan as I have ever known. She has just one "flaw", which is her inherited love of the Orioles, for whom she cheers with a vigor that is neither related to nor dependent upon the quality of the product that the Os put out on the field. She is not a fair-weather fan. She is a "I could not give a rat's ass about the weather" fan. It is an attribute she inherited from her dad. She is, as he was, the best type of fan.
Thomas Eves died several years ago. He died before Buck Showalter managed the Orioles through what was their most recent renaissance, with three playoff appearances between 2012 and 2016. I know though that the daughter to whom he passed on his love of baseball and his love of the Orioles sat glued to every pitch of every game, no doubt wearing her Orioles hat the whole time.
Today, Lisa celebrates a birthday. Since she is younger than I am and I likely cannot outrun her for the rest of my life, I shall not state publicly which milestone she has reached today but shall instead offer this visual aid, which likely reveals more about how old I am than it shall ever reveal about her age:
While I hope her birthday is as happy as she deserves it to be, I have no idea how she shall spend it. I imagine however, given that the Os host the Tampa Rays tonight, she will spend a portion of her evening keeping at least one eye on the game.
Love, whether for baseball or for one's dad, never dies. And even when that love brings us pain, we embrace it because we realize that the pleasure - the joy - it has always brought us far outweighs the pain. A realization that is a cause for celebration even on all of the days of the year that are not our birthday...
...but doubly so on the day that is.
Happy Birthday, Gracie.
-AK
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