Quote:
Originally posted by Kaliix
I was interested in how other umpires would judge ordinary effort.
Does anyone have any sort of guide they go by in terms of how many feet onto the outfield grass a ball has to be before it ceases to be defined by the "infield" fly rule?
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Several things that I like to consider:
1)Where were the fielders playing before the play.
2)The level of the players. (if they have a hot shot F6 he may make a routine play in the outfield while a rookie F4 might not be routine if its hit right behind F3 etc)
3)Generally if the infielder turns his back to the infield, then its very likely that its not ordinary effort (but again that's your judgement)
The most problematic that I remember was a short pop right between F1 and F4 playing deep. There was no way anyone was going to get to the ball with ordinary effort and once the ball hit it was crazy. But none of the officials called it an infield fly and the play stood.
Thanks
David