When Christine Brennan was turning 8, she asked for a baseball glove as a birthday present. That was a remarkable request for a girl to make in 1966. What’s even more remarkable, her father bought the glove and then taught her how to use it.

In a tribute marking her Dad’s 75th birthday five years ago, Chris wrote: “Immediately, this man became the only guy in town who was playing catch in the back yard with a girl. What were the neighbors to think? He went back to the store and bought the girl a baseball bat.”

Now a sports columnist for USA Today and a frequent radio and TV commentator, Chris has published a memoir, “Best Seat in the House” (Scribner), and with Father’s Day approaching, the subtitle is instructive: “A Father, A Daughter, A Journey Through Sports.”

Dads and daughters have always bonded through athletics, but in Toledo, Ohio, in the mid-’60s, that usually meant sharing seats in the stands, not positions on the field. The Brennans lived near “The Glass Bowl,” the University of Toledo football stadium, and as a small child Chris remembers watching the glow of the stadium lights and wondering, “What’s going on there?”