[Apologies, loyal readers--the machine hosting Why I Like Baseball fried about ten days ago and so it is only today, May 27th, that this entry is actually published. -ctan]

The year was 1977. I was ten years old at the time, that age the word "impressionable" only begins to describe. I turned ten just at the start of baseball season, as I do every year--have my birthday, I mean; I only turned ten once. At the time my family had just moved to a new town, plopping me into a new class with only a month or two to go in the school year, and I was not adjusting well. I was picked on at school, got into fights for the first time in my life, and cried to my mother a lot. Then summer came, and freedom.

And baseball. In 1976 we had caught pennant fever, and to tell you the truth, although I remember the Chambliss home run, I don't remember the World Series. The Yankees, apparently, didn't really remember it either, even while they were playing in it, since they got swept by the Reds. (I interviewed Elliott Maddox recently, and he told me he thought the ALCS was such a battle and to have it end on such a climax... well, they had nothing left for the Series. He thinks that's what happened in 2003, too.) Well, now it was a new year, and the team was better, and they were in the news all the time, the Bronx Zoo of Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson and Graig Nettles. My Dad and I spent many weekend afternoons sitting together in a brown vinyl recliner (we both fit in the same chair together) watching the games on TV, and our family went to the Stadium ... a lot. Or what seemed like a lot to me as a kid. I don't know how many times, but probably every few weeks?

That summer Dad and I both learned how to keep score, by following the instructions in a scorecard we bought at the Stadium. We had one of those goofy headphone radios, a kind of gray bulky thing with dials on the side, and we would trade off innings. Whoever was scoring would wear the headphone radio. I didn't have many friends in this new town other than imaginary ones, so my Dad, and Reggie and Bucky and even Fred "Chicken" Stanley who I liked just because of his nickname (he hardly ever played) were my friends.

One friend I did have was a girl named Meredith, Merry for short, who was picked on just as much as I was in school. She and I weren't completely compatible as friends, but when you're ten and still figuring out people and your parents run your social life, well, you know. I liked her and she liked me but we didn't have a lot of interests in common. I was a tomboy and a geek who loved comic books and climbing trees and playing long, complicated games of "Let's Pretend." She was a little more conventional, I guess, wanting to play girl games like house and dress-up the like. That makes it all the more ironic that it was her idea to go and see Star Wars.

I had been a big Star Trek fan as a young kid, watching those 6 pm re-runs every night on Channel 11 ("Eleven Alive") from New York. By age ten I was no longer doing that every night, and I suppose I was waiting for the next big thing to come along. But I had told my mom I didn't want to see Star Wars. Why? According to the tv commercials, it had monsters in it. I was already one of those kids who couldn't go to sleep without the light on and I was afraid the movie would be scary. Heck, I was afraid to swim in a SWIMMING POOL for a short while after just seeing the tv commercial for JAWS. So Star Wars had already been out for a couple of weeks when I slept over one night at Merry's house and the next day her parents were like "let's take all the kids to see a movie." They called my parents for the OK, and so I was whisked along to a theater with Merry and her three younger siblings. Only when we were halfway there did I think to ask, "so, what movie are we seeing?" When her Dad told me it was Star Wars, my heart sank, but then I thought, hmm, it couldn't be too scary if they were taking the little kids to see it. I figured if they could take it, so could I.

Well, I was completely captivated by the film. Coming out of the theater, I could hardly remember any of it except that there were two robots. On the way home, Merry and I discussed the questions such as did C3PO have a nose, or not? And did the half-blue, half-red light on R2D2 show emotion, like a mood ring? As soon as I got home I told my parents that they had to see the movie, and bring my brother, as well. My brother Julian was only three at the time but I felt certain somehow that he wouldn't want to miss it. It might have been a week later we all went to see it, and this time the movie engraved itself on my brain, and I had large swaths of it memorized.

I had had my imprinting moment as a lifelong science fiction fan. Watching Trek all those years had primed me for it, and there it was. I would eventually see the movie, between showings in the theater and its eventual run on HBO, over 50 times before I left for college.

Is it a coincidence that that year was also the year I became a Yankee fan for life? Because that's what a championship does to you, when you ride all the way through to the last game of the year, and they win, and you spend the entire winter with a state of inner well-being.

Fast forward a couple of years, to 1982. I'm fifteen years old and in high school. In April, I spent my birthday at Yankee Stadium with seven other girls and my family. In October, I went to school for Halloween dressed as Han Solo, complete with laser pistol and Corellian Blood Stripe on my pants.

Fast forward again, to 2005, and my latest wardrobe dilemma, which is whether to wear my lucky Mike Mussina jersey to the midnight premiere of the final installment of the movie series. Moose is pitching for the Yankees in a West Coast game that will only be in its second or third inning when we have to leave for the theater. I'm superstitious about this jersey, but, well, do I really believe that what I wear has any effect on the outcome of a game three thousand miles away? Of course not.

So I leave the jersey in the closet when we go to the theater. We drive to Revere, which is the sort of working class New England town where I probably don't want to be seen in pinstripes anyway. There is a very large multiplex there, with stadium style seating, clean bathrooms, and SurroundSound. And a very full parking lot. We find a space and head inside to meet a large group of friends. When we exit the car the Yankees are up 6-2 on the Mariners. Life is good.

But as you know if you have followed recent Yankee headlines, the Yankees did not hold on, Moose only lasted 5 innings, and their win streak was snapped at ten games when they lost 7-6. So, maybe I should have worn the Moose jersey, after all--especially since I did not choose to wear a Star Wars outfit either. I no longer have the pants with the Corellian Blood Stripe on them, but I have plenty of spacey stuff, not to mention cloaks and capes and the like. But I didn't wear any of that either. (I went in my default outfit: black turtleneck and black pants.)

And yet I was disappointed that other fans made the same choice I did. There were a few in Jedi robes down in the third row, but very few others. This was surprising at first because it was a much bigger crowd than for the Lord of the Rings premieres I went to (only on 2 screens), and yet many more people wore costumes to those. But upon further consideration, I think it reflected the fact that a lot of us fans were going more out of a sense of obligation to our "church" than because we were really pumped up expecting a great movie. After being burned on the previous two installments, well, you know how it is. We hated Jar Jar Binks in Episode I. We hated Lucas mucking with his own continuity as far back as Episode VI (Return of the Jedi) for marketing purposes (the Ewoks were originally going to be the Wookies). We hated the wooden acting and lame script in II. And yet we went. Uncostumed, but we went.

Here's why I think there were so few costumes. Unlike with sports, in a movie, the outcome is predetermined for you and there is no other team or element of luck that could make it all go wrong. So as a movie/media fan, when you get your expectations up, and then the director or actors of filmmaker lets you down, you really feel like a chump. Walking out of a sucky film wearing a bathrobe or a carrying a storm trooper helmet, you think, man, what a chump I am. Whereas if your team loses you don't necessarily feel that way. If your team loses you may feel disappointed, sad, angry, etc... but rarely do you feel like a complete fool for wearing your favorite player's name on your back. I think I am not the only one who was skeptical that Lucas could pull it off, and they held back.

That said, it IS a better movie than the previous installment. The performances are much better, the acting and script are better. But the movie never moves out from under the burden of the fact that the audience knows exactly what is going to happen -- we all know Luke's father turns into Darth Vader -- so there are no surprises and the plot plods forward with leaden pace.

Regardless of whether I loved it or hated it, a media culture milestone has been achieved with the release of the movie. I suppose it is a bit like the latter albums of David Bowie's career. The "Let's Dance" and after oeuvre are not even remotely as interesting, complex musically, or good as the earlier stuff (Ziggy Stardust and the like), and yet Let's Dance sold incredibly well because of old fans clinging to their devotion and young new fans hoping there is still some room on the bandwagon. Let's Dance is not a bad album--and this isn't to say that people are dumb for liking it--not at all. It just doesn't hold a candle to the older stuff. There are new fans for Star Wars now, who have every right to be as captivated by movie magic as my generation was when we were 10 years old and thought Star Wars was the best thing we'd ever seen.

And then there is baseball. (How did Larry Lucchino know to draw the parallel between the Yankees and Star Wars? And did he know that for years the music being played at Yankee Stadium during the announcement of the starting lineups is the Star Wars theme? Though of course the "evil" music is for the visitors...) I suppose I can now say that the chapter on Star Wars in my life is over. But baseball doesn't have a final chapter (or prequel or whatever...). A new story starts every year, each new player has the story of his career, each team has a story each season, and sometimes there are even dynasties that keep you following fanatically for years at a time. Hmm. Yankees fans had quite a run there with the 1996 team, and then the sequels in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. Since then it has been the re-make, the new version, and until they win another championship they'll always be counted, like the Star Wars prequels, as "not as good as the original."

The difference is, I'll still get dressed up. I'll still put on my pinstripes, my black-on-black cap with the interlocking NY, my Yankees turtleneck and satin field jacket (if weather calls for them). When I root for the A's, which I occasionally do, I have my A's hat. And let's not forget my "Reverse the Curse" shirt, which I can now retire. Whether my expectations are low or high, baseball can still surprise me, and still make me feel like that ten year old kid.