This is fan fiction. Every character, park, match and event in it is made up. No real athlete, promotion, network, team or person is involved, and nothing here happened.

They call it Tiki-Fence Park because somebody stapled a thatch umbrella to a chain-link fence and declared the neon OPEN sign the scoreboard. The bases are traffic cones. The dugout is three lawn chairs that do not match. The pitching rubber is a pizza box again.

Tonight's batter wore a blank catcher's mask and full blue pads because the house rule said "armor night." His bat was foam. His opponent was a beach ball painted in loud panels with the word fair written on one side and foul on the other in marker that kept smearing.

The umpire was Luis, striped shirt, holding a blue-and-white pool noodle. "Clean cut," he said. "No propane. No biting the cones. And Nacho stays off the rubber."

Nacho is the yellow Labrador who believes every foam finger in Central Florida is a personal invitation.

Luis waved the noodle. The beach ball floated in like a weather balloon that had given up on being weather. The batter swung. POW. The ball bounced off a cone, kissed the fence, and sat under the OPEN sign like it had paid the light bill.

"Fair," yelled somebody from the lawn chairs.

"Foul," yelled Luis, because Nacho already had the foam finger in his mouth and was galloping toward the above-ground pool.

They called it a rain delay even though the sky was dry. The batter sat on a lawn chair. Luis wiped grass off the noodle. Inside the house, a TV muttered about a game nobody in this story plays for. The OPEN sign blinked once and forgot the rest of the alphabet.

Again: this story is fiction. Nobody named here is real, no real show, network, promotion or athlete is involved, and no real result is implied.