As a child, Lori Calabro — like most little girls — fantasized about what it would be like to be all grown up. She imagined her life would be perfect if she had a nice husband, a big house, a couple of cute kids, a job in journalism ... and season tickets to the Red Sox.

Now, at 43, Calabro has the house, the husband, the kids, the job, and the tickets. "So," she says, "my life is pretty much perfect." She’s been an avid — some might say rabid — Sox fan since long before she was old enough to drive to McCoy Stadium in her hometown of Pawtucket to watch the organization’s minor-league team play ball.

"It was a whole other era," Calabro remembers. "I saw all kinds of great players when they were starting out: Fred Lynn, Jim Rice. You could just hang around and meet the guys. You could get everyone’s autograph. If you’re born in New England, you’re born a Red Sox fan."

Calabro loves the game because "anything can happen at any time." She loves the game’s purity, the perennial belief that this year could be "the" year, but most of all, she loves it because "baseball is the only sport that matters."

Contrary to the opinion of many, however, she does not love baseball because of Nomar’s butt, Brian Daubach’s shoulders, or Jason Varitek’s quads.

"I think it’s doing women a disservice to say women fans are going because of the matinee-idol thing," says Calabro, visibly miffed. "It’s about being a fan, not being female."

In fact, the very mention of the scrumptious curve of Garciaparra’s backside or Martinez’s long, rangy legs is enough to incite the ire and scorn of most die-hard female fans within pitching distance. They are fans first. They love the game, and they resent any chick who dares tread on the sacred Fenway turf to ogle the players, but doesn’t know the difference between an ERA and an RBI — or, God forbid, is fuzzy on the very rules of the game. In fact, the die-hard fans have a term for these hapless creatures: Jeter Girls. The term was born in New York when throngs of screaming, panting, baseball-knowledge-free females started coming out to watch Yankee (and über-hottie) Derek Jeter play shortstop. Since then, "Jeter Girl" has become the generic, scornful term for these ignoble fans— and the insult now rolls off the tongues of Red Sox fans as well.

"They’re like an alien breed or something," says Denise Cobb, a 43-year-old nurse from Centerville and a lifelong Sox fan. "I see some of them at Fenway, all dressed up to the nines. They don’t even like baseball. They like baseball players. I don’t disparage them at the games, but I really can’t relate to them."

Jeter Girls or long-suffering female Sox devotees — it makes no difference, some say, as long as the ladies are at the ballpark. "Female fans of any kind are good," says Suzanne Knutson, a vice-president at Hill Holiday Connors Cosmopoulos. "[Jeter Girls] don’t know the history of the teams. They don’t know the players, but if that’s what it takes to get more women into the game, so be it."

In fact, the Red Sox aren’t particularly concerned about getting more women out to the ballgame. Larry Cancro, vice-president of marketing and sales for the Sox, says that when he joined the organization in 1985, he conducted the first demographic study of its fan base. To his surprise, nearly half were women, the largest percentage of female fans for any team in the major leagues. And according to Cancro, the percentages have stayed the same — 52 percent men, 48 percent women — ever since. Other teams have started to catch up only in the past few years.

So why have the Red Sox been such a draw for female fans of any ilk?

"I think it’s historically based," says Cancro. "Baseball teams in this area were set up in the communities. The Red Sox and the Boston Braves were both situated in the South End [at Union Base Ball Ground], in a community where people were employed. It became so much a part of the day-to-day experience that it wasn’t really gender-based. Baseball has always been a part of family life. And unlike a lot of teams, we never moved our team more than a mile from where it started."

Cecilia Tan, a 34-year-old Boston-based writer (and devoted, misplaced Yankees fan), says that women have always been attracted to baseball because it’s more accessible than other sports.

"In baseball you have to channel your aggressions into a focused, meditative practice," says Tan. "In baseball, you can’t just hit harder. It’s not a physically confrontational sport, and I think that it doesn’t turn women away like football or hockey does. Plus, there are already so many other women going to baseball games." Tan is so devoted to the sport that she even started her own Web site, www.baseballchicks.com, as a forum for like-minded women. Jeter Girls need not log on.

So this season, when you find yourself sharing the bleachers with an avid female Red Sox fan, don’t ask where her husband is, or mention how cool it is that she knows so much about the game — you’re liable to get a kick in the cup. But with patience, in an unguarded moment, you might catch a glimpse of her feminine side. "Their bums," whispers Knutson, "do look nice in those pants."

Kris Frieswick can be reached at krisf1@gte.net