Twilight Baseball

No, this isn't a post about an interesting ballgame I took in one evening ...

On November 21, I saw the film Twilight on its opening day. I have not read the book, though I do have it (as well as the entire 4-book series) on my list of books I’d like to read. So, while I knew elements of the story, I didn’t know a lot going into the film. My wife, on the other hand, has read all of the books in the series and is much more of an expert on them.

While I found the beginning a little too teeny-bopper in its presentation (an aspect that my wife confirms is not representative of the book), I generally enjoyed the film, especially once the relationship between the two main characters got going. It was interesting to see the filming quality that they used—one that I think is meant to relate to contemporary teenagers and young adults. The entire film kind of felt like a two-hour Evanescence video.

What perhaps interested me the most, though, was the prominence of baseball, which plays at least two roles in the stories: (1) the main character’s father appears to be a pretty diehard (or is that Twihard?) Seattle Mariners fan (2) and the vampires in the story like to play baseball. Given my interest in the ways that baseball (as well as sports in general) is used and referenced in texts that otherwise are not about baseball (or sports in general), this particularly grabbed my attention. According to my wife, baseball plays the same kinds of roles in the books. Add that to my reasons for wanting to read the books because I’m now wondering what this suggests about the social meaning of baseball.