The Washington Nationals swapped out their baseball bats for lightsabers on Sunday, as their stadium hosted its first-ever “Star Wars Day”.

The Nats were playing “the Galactic Empire of the West, the Los Angeles Dodgers” and the organisation went all out to provide what it called an “entire sensory experience” – complete with photo booths, costumed characters, free cups shaped like R2-D2 and “a DJ spinning the latest tracks heard at the Mos Eisley Cantina”.

It also appeared that Yoda had taken over the Nationals’ Twitter feed.

The team’s official mascots got in on the act, with Screech the eagle donning a Jedi robe and challenging Dodgers to lightsaber duels.

And if you thought that the Nationals’ famous Racing Presidents would be too dignified for such things, you would have been wrong. Behold: Teddy Roosevelt dressed as Chewbacca.

Even the groundskeepers were dressed up, although some looked about as excited by the idea as Luke Skywalker after Uncle Owen tells him to do his chores.

Despite 90F-plus temperatures and the onslaught of horrifying bobble-headed Wookies, the fans seemed to be enjoying themselves.

As of this writing, the force was not, however, with the Nationals. At the top of the ninth inning, they were losing 3-0 to the Dodgers.