As a lifelong baseball fan, one thing I love about the sport is that you can watch every game, every year, and still see something new in many of the innings the unfold. It truly gives you a deep appreciation for the game, the variables, the difficulty of each position, and more.
On the other hand, when watching with my wife or kids, everything is new to them, and everything is weird. Hence, there are a lot of questions, and while much of it might seem like common sense to me, a lot of it does need explanation.
What Does “Top” or “Bottom” Mean?
“Top” and “Bottom” are both used when talking about innings in baseball, with the top of the inning being when the visiting team is up to bat, and the bottom with the home team hitting. The terms are in reference to the scoreboard, in which the away team is placed on the top, and the home team is placed on the bottom.
So, from the image below, you can see the “Guest” (also called the “away” or “visiting” team) scored one run in the top of the 4th inning, while the home team scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Unlike most sports, baseball is not timed, and there are not quarters, halves, or periods. Instead, there are innings—9 of them. That is, unless there is a tie at the end of the 9 innings, and then extra innings are played.
During those innings, each team gets a chance to hit, with the visiting team batting first, or in the top of the inning, and the home team batting second, or in the bottom of the inning. The inning is not complete until both teams have a chance to hit.
This “rule” becomes more and more important later in the game. For instance, if the score is tied, and in the top of the 9th inning the away team scores a run to put them ahead, the home team still gets their chance in the bottom half of the inning. It all comes down to equal chances—the away team bats first, so in order for the home team to have an equal chance to score runs, they always will bat last.
So, when you hear that it’s the “top of the third” it means the away team is batting, and that the home team has yet to hit during the third inning.
