I have begun to take the natural pairing of baseball and Star Wars for granted recently. Not so long ago the juxtaposition of these two very different fan bases didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. But as this pairing becomes more matter-of-fact it opens us up to further analysis of both as time, baseball and Star Wars move on, grow, and change. “Franchise fatigue” has become the subject of some debate these days; whether it even exists, if it does what constitutes that fatigue, and whether certain fan bases are experiencing it. 
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At its core, franchise fatigue is about over-saturation and diminishing quality. In film the franchises that bear names like Alien, Predator, Terminator, and even the MCU come under fire as they continue to roll out film after film with a dizzying frequency that gives viewers pause. We’ve come to expect a certain level of quality and spectacle as these massive stories evolve from film to film and as fan service and tired tropes rear their ugly heads more and more frequently, we begin to resent our movie-going dollars, hungry for surprises, for ingenuity. Perhaps no franchise is more beset by a passionate or perhaps presumptuous fanbase desperate to avoid fatigue than the Star Wars Saga. 

The Star Wars fan is unique in their very specific ideas about how story ought to progress, how tone should shift, and perhaps most juvenilely, how characters ought to evolve or fail to do so. We hadn’t started to discuss the notion of fatigue with regard to the Star Wars saga until after the release of the divisive Last Jedi film, but I would say that film serves as an example of the inevitability of that conversation. For better or worse, that film was different from what we had come to expect from our Star Wars films, it zigged when it should have zagged and it zigged so dramatically that it split the earth between members of its fandom. But it got us thinking about what the franchise was, what it could be, and how different our opinions of those ideas were in the fandom.

Now I could get caught up in the factors that contributed to the tabling of the slated Anthology films after the lukewarm reception and box office performance of Solo, a film that might very well be the first greatest casualty of franchise fatigue, and the, in my opinion, small-minded outrage inspired by Episode VIII, but that would lead us a bit off track. This is about Star Wars, but it’s also about Baseball. 

It would be strange to talk about franchise fatigue in relation to baseball. Or would it? I don’t think it’s too big a stretch to talk about Baseball as a form of storytelling. In fact, Baseball is a decades long story with its ebbs and flows, its shifting cast of players, and directing managers just like a film franchise. Just like Star Wars. I mean it is called “the show.” So why don’t we discuss fatigue as fans of baseball, the way we have begun to as fans of Star Wars? It’s not as if baseball fans are immune to over saturation or diminishing quality. The life cycle of any team season to season can fluctuate from hopeful optimism all the way through the seven stages of grief as poor management, underperforming prospects, or just plain bad luck radically alter the narrative of that franchise. So what is it that keeps us coming back to baseball after a season of disappointment, of these fatiguing circumstances? It’s distance certainly; having time and space enough to miss baseball helps. The new release every six months’ time frame that Disney had set out for Star Wars certainly contributed to fans experiencing fatigue. But more than that, the thing that keeps us coming back to Baseball, and ultimately the thing that will continue to bring us back to Star Wars despite fatigue, is nostalgia. 

I’ve said it before, as long as Disney is going to churn out new Star Wars films, I will be in the theater to see them. Doesn’t matter the quality, how bad the last one is, how silly the premise. And you know why? Because of that body buzzing exhilaration I feel in that theater the second I hear the opening flourish of the Star Wars Theme. It’s there for me every time and it takes me right back to being a little kid, sat a little too close to the TV, listening to my Dad reading me the opening crawl because I was too young to read it myself. It’s the same walking out and seeing the crisp lawn of the baseball diamond, every time I get that rush, that excitement, that little kid feeling that, “this is where baseball happens!” I believe that the power and purity of that feeling is what keeps us coming back to baseball year after year and I believe that same feeling is the secret to overcoming our franchise fatigue with Star Wars. 

You know the old adage, “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out”? We might need to spin that to cover a certain annual trend in Major League Baseball. Let’s try: “I went to a Star Wars convention and a baseball game broke out”. That would be the most apt description of how Star Wars nights are trending. What began as a unique theme night has turned into a beloved tradition, a gathering of nerdy organizations and fans from around Colorado, and an extension of the comic and pop culture conventions that the state has to offer.
 
The sixth rendition of the event took place last Saturday, August 3rd, at Coors Field. This may have been the biggest one yet. Walking around, it was hard to distinguish whether you were at a con or at a baseball game, as the number of Star Wars shirts and costumes rivaled the number of Rockies shirts and baseball jerseys. The Mountain Garrison 501st Legion made their usual costumed appearance. They and stormtroopers, Wookies, and Jedi of all ages took the field pre-game for an impressive cosplay parade, the biggest one I’ve seen in my years attending the event. The line of cosplayers wrapped around the entirety of the field and then some. Just as impressive was the line of individuals collecting their beautifully designed purple Boba Fett t-shirt from the theme night ticket package. Fans entering the game early also walked away with an awesome R2-D2 drink koozie. 
 
The festivities continued throughout the concourse. A table of artists cranked out Star Wars sketches for fans, while face painters on the other side of the ballpark decked kids out as their favorite characters or with cool Star Wars designs. The Coors Field graphics team came up with another outstanding and hilarious Star Wars crawl for the jumbotron, taking shots at the opposing San Francisco Giants (and their famed garlic fries) along the way. The rest of the video package and the graphics throughout the game were a blast. 
 
The game on the field was a thrilling one, despite a heartbreaking home loss for the Rebellion. On paper, the matchup between two struggling NL West teams looked to be far from a powerful clash of the Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Instead, it was a back and forth affair that was so dramatic at times, it felt like “Duel of the Fates” should be blaring over the stadium speakers. The Giants held off an attempted Rockies’ rally in the bottom of the 9th to escape the mountainous Planet Coors with a 6-5 win. 

The mixed crowd of Star Wars and baseball fans was electric, to the tune of 47,540 in attendance. It’s becoming quite clear that Star Wars theme nights are both a staple and a major draw across the MLB. In fact, 29 of the 30 MLB teams hosted or plan to host a Star Wars game in the 2019 season. It has become a staple for fans of the franchise, too. What may have initially been a novelty for Star Wars fans is now a yearly staple marked on the calendar months in advance, as evidenced by those who bought their themed ticket package early and turned out in droves for the game. Sci-fi and sports have come to a harmonious accord that is sure to last long past Episode VII in 2020.