Hey, beer man!

I'm not prone to hallucinate about baseball beer guys. So I'm pretty sure I saw him. He wasn't carrying, or hawking beer. And he was in the wrong city. He might be a two-timer, like me.

Yesterday, walking down Half Street from work, there was Howard the beer guy from Camden Yards. In D.C.

Howard's probably the only beer guy I can identify by sight, anywhere in the world. He's got a timeless mullet, pulled into a ponytail. And for a while, he had a shtick that no one could touch.

Whenever he poured your beer, he would ask you a baseball trivia question. If you got it right, he gave you your beer, for free. He was a walking baseball encyclopedia. It was awesome.

Howard stopped asking my dad questions when he got his second answer right during one game. He shut dad down, smartly. My dad can hang on the baseball trivia.

My crowning beer-buying accomplishment was the time I knew "Walter Johnson" was the right answer to Howard's question about a fantastic pitcher who pitched for sub-par teams near Baltimore, but the Nationals hadn't moved to D.C. yet. He probably thought I was too young to remember that the Senators were a team in D.C. (I am too young, but my baseball knowledge runs historical at times). I got my free beer from Howard.

So yesterday, Howard was walking in D.C., in a red shirt, carrying a bag to the Nationals vs. Phillies game (the Nats won 10-2, by the way). I'm not sure whether he was going just to catch the game, or if he is two-timing Camden Yards with Nationals Stadium. I don't blame him if he is. I do that too.

But I hope he was just going to enjoy the game. Reading the Baltimore Style Magazine piece on the people at Camden Yards (link above, look for Howard Hart), you can tell he still digs baseball and taking in a live game. He's a guy I'd like to buy a beer.

I'd bet he's walked more steps at Camden Yards than anyone could count. He probably turns to "hey beer man!" anywhere, at any time, purely on reflex. But there are those of us that know his name is Howard. And he knows his baseball.

At Chick Fil-A

We've got Chick Fil-A all to ourselves, Anna and Ava barefoot in the play place, Latin jazz strumming over the speakers and the girls are choreographing their dance moves in step, one then the other copies.

I just got off the phone with my dad, called to wish him a happy birthday, which is today, and we talk about the Ravens, because it's fresh and that's what we do.

A steady rain outside, with a hint of ice or snow to come. It's nasty, but the coffee is solid and I'm kicked back with Terrance Hayes's Lighthead, but mostly watching the girls.

Thinking about birthdays and fathers and kids--Anna's birthday is Monday and Ava's is less than two weeks away.

Generations of consciousness and smiles. The creativity the girls are turning loose in the play place matches the flamenco finger picking of the guitar.

Ava comes out and asks to sit on my lap to finish her yogurt. Anna walks out reciting, "six salamanders, eight chocolate chip cookies, 11 trees..."

I think about the girls and my dad and being a dad and my heart knows, in this moment, I could not love any more than I do.

A game inherited

'How come you never played pro football?' I asked my dad. I was maybe seven. I knew he played in high school.

'I was never really big enough,' he said, standing 6-feet tall and weighing 180.

I nodded my head and went back to organizing my football cards. I could comb through football or baseball cards, memorize statistics and plot the players I still needed to round out the full roster of the Baltimore Colts. It could have been a month after that exchange when I was reading the card for the Colts middle linebacker Ed Simonini. He was listed at 6-feet tall. Remarkable.

I went to dad to let him know there was still hope. 'Dad, you're the same size as Ed Simonini. You could play for the Colts!' Simonini was listed between 210 and 220, but weight was irrelevant for a seven-year-old (Funny how Ed would be a defensive back now at that size).

Dad didn't change careers, but that story is indicative of the place sports held in our house growing up and the family bond it engendered. We routed for Baltimore, the Colts and the Orioles. My mom's father attended every single home game the Colts ever played and my grandmother missed only one,  pregnant at the time, with my mom. We routed against the Redskins and the Yankees and still do to this day.

My dad went to college at the University of Virginia, who had Ralph Sampson playing basketball when I was younger and we watched the Wahoos and routed against Maryland.

I remember my first Orioles baseball games at Memorial Stadium and being there with my dad for Game 1 against the Phillies in the 1983 World Series and being there a few years later for Mike Mussina's first game as an Oriole at home. I remember going to a Colts vs. Redskins pre-season game with my dad and my grandfather (mom's father) in Washington wearing my Bert Jones Colts jersey. I remember getting a fractured skull during Sunday School (another story) and being excited that I got to wear my Colts helmet to nursery school during the week.

I remember watching TV and seeing the Colts leaving town in the middle of the night in Mayflower moving trucks and being teamless, but still loving football and hating the Redskins. I remember talking with my dad about our excitement when the Ravens came to Baltimore and them drafting tackle Jonathan Ogden and linebacker Ray Lewis in their first draft as Baltimore's team. And in 2000, when the Ravens won the Superbowl, and how I was 27 years old when our football team won their first championship during my sports watching days.

We were on hand for the Ravens vs. Colts Baltimore home playoff game and at the Ravens stadium this past Sunday for the return of safety Ed Reed and the 10-year anniversary of the Super Bowl championship team.

Sports has been and continues to be a bond between my father and me and my grandfather when he was alive and a dinner table conversation. It's still one of the subjects we talk most easily about.

And for our girls now, with a Baltimore fan father and a Pittsburgh fan mother--our eight-year-old has Ravens QB Joe Flacco and Steelers QB Ben somebody or other jerseys in her drawer)--our girls are also growing up in a sports household.

Anna's Ravens Flacco jersey was a gift, after all. From my dad.