Celebrate Star Wars This Weekend, Baseball Did

Not so long ago, in cities very, very nearby…

It was a time of celebration. Baseball clubs, located in stadiums big and and small, spent the weekend celebrating the Star Wars series. At events across the country, players and fans dressed as their favorite characters while the heroic WookieChewbacca and the Empire's master of evil, Darth Vader, threw out ceremonial first pitches.

Sunday was May 4, which has become an official day to unleash your inner Jedi. Why? Because when you say the date it sounds an awful like the Star Wars' series signature line: May the Fourth be with you. And no sport has embraced the Dark Side quite like baseball. Minor league clubs like the Durham Bulls, Lansing Lugnuts, and Kane County Cougars mixed it up with bounty hunters and droids who turned the teams' stadiums into parties the likes of which have only been seen on Endor.

But MLB — especially the Cincinnati Reds — got in on the act, too. The MLB Fan Cave put together an awesome video of some of the bigs' best sluggers wielding lightsabers instead of bats. And in Cincy, the Reds had a whole weekend of fun planned, from fireworks on Friday to a cool t-shirt giveaway on Saturday to free posters on Sunday. Characters interacted with Reds and Brewers players, and Mr. Red donned his best Jedi robes. All that was missing was Jabba the Hutt and his creepy sidekick Salacious Crumb.



You can't repel awesome of that magnitude! So here's more from baseball's epic Star Wars celebration:
















Photos: Al Behrman/AP Photo (Vader/Mr. Red, Vader first pitch), David Kohl/AP Photo (Chewbacca first pitch), MikeVassallo13/Twitter (Jonathan Lucroy/Vader), InstaReds/Twitter (Votta scoreboard), KCCougars/Twitter (Cougars/Stormtroopers/Vader), Jay Blue (Lansing Lugs)