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My wife and I have our 21st wedding anniversary coming up next month, which may be even more of a surprise to her than it is to me.

Especially since we've been to only one baseball game together.

While there might not seen to be much of a connection between baseball and marriage — except, possibly, for the word "diamond" — at least one researcher says he has found a possible link.

Howard Markman is a psychologist, the co-director of the University of Denver's Center for Marital and Family Studies and the author of "Fighting for Your Marriage." Based on his research, he says, he has determined that the correlation between fun and marital happiness is "high, and significant." This "fun," it should be noted, is supposed to be experienced together. If one member of the marriage goes out for an evening of fun every night at the corner tavern while the other stays home and does laundry, the level of their marital happiness may not be all that high or significant.

While Markman's conclusion about fun isn't particularly surprising, here's one that is: According to another study by him, cities with major league baseball teams had a 28 percent lower divorce rate than cities that didn't have teams, but had expressed an interest in having one.

It's possible, of course, that this is nothing more than a statistical coincidence and that cities that have a sausage factory also may have a 28 percent lower divorce rate than cities that don't. Still, it could be a valuable statistic for husbands who would rather spend nine innings with their wives at a baseball than nine hours being dragged by their wives through a shopping mall.

I know I certainly could have used it with my wife, who is convinced that the original words to the seventh inning song were, "Drag me out to the ball game."

"What could be more boring than sitting in a stadium for three hours, eating a limp hot dog and watching a bunch of grown men standing around and spitting?" she demanded when I tried to convince her to go to a baseball game with me in our first year of marriage.

"Spending three hours walking through a department store, eating a cobb salad and watching women putting makeup on each other," I replied. "Besides, going to a baseball game together would be a great opportunity to spend time together. Maybe developing an interest in baseball will give us something to talk about besides shopping and kids and stuff like that."

"Well, all right," she agreed. "But only if we can go with another couple."

So we went to a major league game with our good friends, Jeff and Tanya. While Jeff and I spent nine innings watching the game, my wife and Tanya spent nine innings ignoring the game and talking about shopping and kids and stuff.

That was 20 years ago and it was our last baseball game together. So whatever the glue may be that has held our marriage together, it certainly isn't baseball.

But I don't know what it is.

Because marriage is even harder to understand than the balk rule.

Contact this writer at 225-2439 or at dlstewart@DaytonDaily News.com.