h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Goth baseball season is again upon us. I can tell by the tunes the birds are singing, and the way the newspaper reports bizarre trivialities.

Goths love baseball, but they hate the American kind. Americans care who wins. How silly. The point of baseball, the Goths tell me, is that it creates arcane rules which allow for emergent properties . The goal of the game can shift from one aspect of play to the next: most home runs, most bases stolen, most pitchers turned into frogs by the opponent's wizards , that sort of thing.

They say it has something to do with the lower sephiroth of the kabbalah, whatever that means.

The last Goth baseball game I attended was between the Bangenheim Bullfinches and the Tiegelstein Tufted Titmice.

There was the standard opening ceremony. After the singing of the National Theme Song, 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' , and the water-bucket revival of players overcome by patriotic emotion, there was the traditional release of the National Bird, the Bluebird of Happiness. Auspiciously, the Bluebird flew over (and fertilised) the Visitors' dugout, before settling on the shoulder of Gotha's ruler, King Terry, of whom the less said, the better . Then play could begin .

The first inning was as usual played on donkeys . Two bales of hay and three balls were eaten, a bystander was kicked in an unfortunate place, but nobody scored.

In the second inning, the Tufted Titmice pitcher beaned every single batter but the last three. The Bullfinches retaliated by pitching nothing but balls, until the Titmice batters swung wildly enough to strike out. The score was 3-3.

In the third inning, they brought out the wizards as designated hitters. Result: balls turned into butterflies , invoking the 'pop fly' rule, gloves turned into tennis rackets , and bats turned into, well, bats . Nobody scored, and the game had to be halted for two hours until fresh equipment could be fetched.

In the fourth inning, everybody had to run clockwise around the bases, backwards. Score: 6-4, Bullfinches .

The fifth inning was relatively normal, except that the pitchers kept giving the batters the bird , which in Gotha is a high honour . Score: 15-4, Bullfinches.

During the sixth inning, the Tufted Titmice stole three bases (and wouldn't give them back), the Bullfinch shortstop stole the scene (I think it was from 'Hamlet' ), and the Bluebird of Happiness stole the last ball . More equipment was sent for. Score: still 15-4, Bullfinches.

The seventh inning was marred by lengthy arguments over the rules. Finally, the two managers compared notes, and found they were using different rule books . Arbitration was sought from King Terry ; he declared the Revised Standard Version of the rule book to be anathema, and decreed that henceforth only the Authorised, or King Odoacer, Version would be used . According to this version, runners got triple points on Thursdays. Since it was a Thursday, the score at the end of the seventh inning was 36-28, still in favour of the Bullfinches.

Then there was the seventh inning stretch, involving a spirited popcorn-ball fight , release of the sacred mylar balloons , and the singing of 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' in Gothic (text not available as yet).

Unfortunately, at this point the game was called because of an unseasonable volcano, and, in accordance with the rules of the Authorised Version of the rule book, the visiting Tufted Titmice were declared the winners .

Goth baseball is not for the faint-hearted. But, as they say, 'Slahsmanna iup!' ('Batter up')

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