I should have seen this coming.
The first clue was my expecting Green Bay Packer-loving girlfriend’s search for infant Jordy Nelson jerseys. But since the Packers aren’t in the same division, or conference for that matter, of my beleaguered and beloved Cleveland Browns, I can live with the fact that my child may one day wait for a Lambeau Leap rather than make a pilgrimage to the Dawg Pound.
Sure it would hurt but children need to be their own person and try new things. Defiance with a healthy dose of rebellion builds character right?
Hell, I hated The Beatles until I was well into my teens because my dad was such a fan. He once bought a stereo specifically for the CD release of the White Album.
But nothing prepared me for last Sunday when I was forced to consider the soul-crushing nightmare of a possibility that my unborn daughter could be a, shudder, Baltimore Ravens fan.
If you’re not familiar with the story, the Browns were ripped from the loving arms of Lake Erie in 1996 and moved to Baltimore, a tragic city that had been crying since the Colts were rounded up and run to Indianapolis in the middle of the night after the 1983 season.
In 2000, the now Ravens won the Super Bowl. Cleveland got a team back in 1999 thanks to expansion but the damage had already been done. The wound cut so deep that when Art Modell, the man who moved the team, died last year the Browns wanted to honour him but his family refused, worried that fans at Cleveland Browns Stadium would disrespect his memory.
Part of me suspects they were right.
What’s worse, the Browns and Ravens were put in the same division and forced to face each other twice a year, every year.
Last Sunday the Ravens crushed the New England Patriots 28-13 in the AFC Championship game, punching their ticket to another Super Bowl. My girlfriend and I were watching the game with some friends, including my old roommate who unfortunately happens to be a Ravens fan.
So much so that she was dressed in purple from head-to-toe, standing on top of her chair because that “helps the team” (Who am I to argue with results, they took the game by 15).
At one point the Ravens scored what seemed like their 700th touchdown when she jumped from her chair, running to put her hands on my girlfriend’s baby bump in celebration.
And that’s when it happened -- she kicked.
Now medical professionals may say that by this point in the pregnancy, 26 weeks, the baby can hear the outside world and perhaps she was responding due to the sheer volume and shrillness of my friend’s Raven caw (she’s loud).
Perhaps the bundle-of-joy-to-be was upset with the Patriots’ D. I could begrudgingly accept my daughter being a fan of Bradyface and, as George R.R. Martin calls him, “Evil Little Bill." But the seed of doubt had been planted. What if she grows up to be a Ravens fan?
Of course I’ve lost sleep wondering whether I’ll be a good father. Some would argue that worrying about which group of rich men bashing each other’s brains in your unborn child will support, rather than say what kind of world lets a man who can’t even remember to brush his own teeth procreate, means I’ll be a poor one.
Through visits with the midwife, prenatal classes and the fortunate timing of Zellers closing (we got a sweet deal on a combination stroller/carrier), I’m preparing to be a father. I will be ready to raise the best and brightest little girl I can.
Maybe she’ll have absolutely no interest in professional sports at all.
But what do I do if she becomes the fan of a division rival?
