Quote:
Originally posted by IRISHMAFIA
I have no problem with the rule or the sense of it.
You kill the ball to keep the circus off the field. If a fielder wants to take the chance that by knocking the ball to the ground, they'll get a double play, more power to him. The odds are about 50/50 that it will work because you find very few true bounces on most softball fields I've been on.
The defender isn't the one which put the ball in play, the batter did that. If you don't want to put your runners in jeopardy, don't hit it at a defender. Duh!
Why should the defense be deprived of making additional outs? This usually only happens when they notice the BR NOT proceeding to 1B.
This isn't baseball, and unless any of us were in the room when this rule was developed, we don't know what the "spirit" of any rule is. We may get an interpretation, but that is about it.
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These type of things never happen in youth leagues because the kids are not savvy enough and can not think fast enough to fully realize the benefits of INTENTIONALLY dropping a ball hit in their direction.
I've seen some pretty ingenious stuff at the adult level, however. I've seen adult infielders DELIBERATELY drop infield flies in an attempt to confuse the runners.
True, I wasn't in the room when the ASA rulesmakers crafted ASA rule 8-2-J regarding an intentionally dropped fly. But I can just about promise you they were referencing baseball's similar rule.
After reading POE #28, I can guarantee you that they completely misunderstood the purpose of such a rule.
First of all, I think we can all agree that the Infield Fly Rule exists in order to protect the runners from any kind of trickery or mishap that would unfairly put the runners at risk and allow the defense to gain an undeserved double play.
The "intentionally dropped ball" rule exists basically for the same reason, only it is there to cover those situations that would not normally qualify as an Infield Fly.
Whenever it is *not* an infield fly situation (i.e. R1 only), as long as the batter hits a fly ball with appreciable height, there generally is no advantage that can be gained by intentionally dropping the ball, since the batter is almost always going to be safe at 1st. Yet the rule still exists for the following reason:
Situation: R1 is a speedster and a base stealing threat. Batter is a slug. Batter hits high pop-up to F4. R1 has to hold. F4 drops the ball and forces R1 out at 2nd easily. The defense has still gained only one out but the net effect of the play has replaced a fast runner with a much slower runner.
The proper application of the "intentionally dropped fly" rule would prohibit this kind of shenanigan. As soon as the umpire determined that the ball was intentionally dropped, he would declare it dead and call the batter out.
But, mostly, the rule exists for line drives - where the Infield Fly rule *never* applies.
You say: "If a fielder wants to take the chance that by knocking the ball to the ground, they'll get a double play, more power to him. The odds are about 50/50 that it will work because you find very few true bounces on most softball fields I've been on." I disagree. I think it is very easy to allow a line drive to hit your glove and be allowed to fall harmlessly to the ground, at the fielder's feet, without much worry of the ball going off into Never Never Land.
With R1 and a line drive hit directly to F4 - it is *so* easy to convert that into a double play by simply blocking the ball with your open glove and never squeezing it shut, allowing the ball to fall at your feet. R1 will be forced it with great ease.
You say: "Why should the defense be deprived of making additional outs? This usually only happens when they notice the BR NOT proceeding to 1B." But with a line drive, whether the batter hustles off to first or not, is not going to help them much. The very nature of a line drive will rob the batter of valuable time that he would normally have on a pop-up.
In baseball, this would result in an immediate deadball. And today, for the first time, I'm discovering that softball has a *completely* different spin on this play. Apparently, in softball, the defense CAN pull of this trick.
Yet, in softball, surprisingly, if the fielder makes the legal catcher (retiring the batter) and then subsequently intentionally drops the ball ... THEN the ball becomes dead and the rule is invoked. Why? Once the fielder makes the catch and the batter is signaled out by the umpire, the runner no longer is forced to run and has nothing to fear, whether the fielder holds it ... accidentally drops it ... or intentionally drops it. It makes no difference!
The rule makes sense. The interpretation does *not*!