Story for April 2013

WHO’S ON TOP?

It was a regular Tuesday evening when, without the warnings of thunder and lightning,  the power went out.

My plans to watch a video, play spider solitaire online and answer some emails were put on hold…so, I decided to read.

Silly me – that required  a lamp. So there we were, two people with one struggling flashlight. We launched into what couples all over the city were doing without the distractions provided by media.

We talked to each other.

At least we gave it a good shot.

The Diamondbacks were in the playoffs with a record of 0 and 2, so this game was do or die for them.  Bill had a battery radio so as we conversed, that unique sound that goes with radio baseball was in the background. A comment from the announcer “…top of the 7^th…” got me thinking. And that’s when things went downhill.

“Which comes first?”

“What comes first?”

“The top or bottom – which comes first?

“They follow each other. The top is followed by a bottom and a bottom is followed by a top.”

“But which comes first? Which one precedes the middle of an inning?”

“There is no middle of an inning.”

“But if there is a top and a bottom there has to be a middle. It’s between the top and the bottom or maybe between the bottom and the top, whichever is first. But which is first?”

Bill sighed heavily, and went to look for batteries, leaving me alone to logically answer my own question. (I’m like a dog with a bone when given a logic challenge.)

I was leaning toward bottom first, followed by top. When you bake a cake, you put the cake on the bottom first and then you put the frosting on top. So it must be bottom followed by top.

Then I thought some more and realized that when you “get to the bottom of something” that means “it’s over,” so maybe when you get to the bottom of an inning, the inning is over and you had already had the top.

I recognize that it was a little late in life for someone who has grown up in the United States to ask my original question but I embroidered a lot as a child and then I was in the convent and later busy raising a family, and well, it never occurred to me before tonight.

There’s a good chance I might lose some sleep over this one (that dog with a bone thing) so if you can help me out, I’d be grateful.

Then I’ll be able to explain it to Bill. It’s weird. Having played baseball for all those years, you think he’d know a thing like that.