Home team bats last

Imagine if the Texas Rangers held a lottery and the winner was afforded the privilege of suiting up and traveling with the team for three weeks, being in the dugout during the games, and acting as assistant bench coach. Imagine also if the person who won wasn't really into baseball, but had entered the contest for a variety of alternative reasons. During a tense and crucial part of the first game the person turns to Buck Showalter and says "home team bats last, right?" - That's how I sometimes feel with this group. World class archaeologists leading the dig. Archaeology, anthropology, and ancient Hebrew majors digging. And then there is me. * My three weeks of digging will end this Thursday. Many of the students on the team will stay for the second session, which is a four week session. Replacements for us "three weekers" will arrive this Saturday. At lunch the other day a student said "I feel sorry for those three weekers who have to leave." - The thing is that the people who are into this stuff get really excited about it. Myself - I think it is interesting, but not as much at they. So, we are digging along and someone scrapes some plaster with his pitiche. It might be significant! The area director and his assistant are called. They come and look at it. Maybe get into the square and check it out for themselves. The command goes out - get out the leveleer and calculate a new height. Write up a new loci in the notebooks and open a new bucket for pottery, bone, flint, and artifacts. Everyone's excited, and I am thinking "come on people, it's not like someone just hit for the cycle." * So this archaeology stuff is largely lost on me, but I am doing the best I can. (As I was writing this I had to ask a girl nearby to remind me of the name of that mini-pick axe that we use - the pitche. I probably misspelled it.) I prefer the large pick axe anyway. Nobody but Hai can match me when it comes to doing damage with that thing.