An eclipse-related thought:

Years ago, while on assignment in Chicago, I was listening to a White Sox game on the car radio. The garrulous, excitable Harry Caray—in the midst of his half-century of inimitable sportscasting—was doing play-by-play. And for one inning, a young lad, maybe 10 years old, had been invited to be a “color commentator” alongside Caray; a gimmick, sure, but an appealing treat to the listener and a taste of the Big Time for the kid.

There was a fly ball that dropped untouched, apparently misplayed by an outfielder. When Harry, as was his wont, registered disgust with what he judged to be an inferior performance, the little guy came to the fielder’s defense.

“I think,” he piped in his canary voice, “he lost it in the sun.”

To which Harry gruffly bellowed, “He’s from Mexico!” As if an assumed familiarity with Sol in more Southern climes could prevent such a mishap.

So here’s the connecting thought: On Monday, with Major League games scheduled to be played in a couple of cities that will be smack in the path of the total solar eclipse, has anyone wondered if an outfielder could lose the ball in the moon?

For two or three minutes on the afternoon of the Cleveland Guardians’ first home game of the season, it will be really dark as the moon gets between the earth and sun. The same will be true for the Texas Rangers’ scheduled game in Arlington, Tex.

So, if there were to be a fly ball in those locales, coinciding with the eclipse, and a fielder accustomed to flipping down his sunglass lenses while looking skyward were to become disoriented in the blackout and lose the ball….

Base hit? Error?

First of all, baseball Rule 10.12a won’t be much help. It specifies:

“The official scorer shall charge an outfielder with an error if such outfielder allows a fly ball to drop to the ground if, in the official scorer’s judgment, an outfielder at that position making ordinary effort would have caught such fly ball.”

Nothing about losing the ball in the sun. Or the moon.

Obviously, the latter would be an extremely rare situation. To begin with, how often are fielders likely to lose sight of batted balls in the firmament? On average, only about a third of balls in play are hit in the air—and that includes the unplayable ones launched triumphantly into the outfield seats by annoyingly admiring sluggers.

More to the point, there never have been Major Leaguers performing on the day of a total eclipse in a city that is in the so-called “path of totality.” And the next possibility of a solar eclipse anywhere in the contiguous United States—forget limiting that to Big League burgs—won’t come for another 20 years. In Cleveland, specifically, a total solar eclipse hasn’t happened since 1806 and won’t again until 2444.

Besides, both the Guardians and Rangers decided to start their games several hours after the precise moment that the earth, moon and sun will perfectly align to produce a full midnight-at-midday experience.

Of the five other MLB cities that day that will be hosting games while experiencing, briefly, a 90-percent blockage of the sun, only one—New York—originally intended to stick with an afternoon (2:05) starting time that theoretically would synchronize the couple of minutes of celestial stagecraft with someone at bat. The plan in Gotham was to employ stadium lights all afternoon while the disc of moon slowly blotted out most of the sun and then went on its way between 2:10 and 4:36—roughly, the expected length of the game.

That raised the potential circumstance of a ball in the air just as the moon cancelled most of the sun’s light—possibly with runners on the bases, the game’s outcome in doubt, a fielder suddenly groping for a fix on the ball’s flight.

Alas, just four days before the eclipse, the Yanks turned a blind eye to the intriguing possibilities and moved their first pitch four hours later, around natural twilight. A time, by the way, when baseballs are known to be lost in the darkening sky.

So the moon is off the hook for interfering. At least for another few decades.