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Originally posted by DownTownTonyBrown
I personally will never call an infield fly that I don't feel could reasonably be caught. That is my condition of ordinary effort - the ball could be caught. Runners can, and do, make this decision too. The vast majority of the time my decision and the runner's decision will be the same. Runners are not going to wait for my decision; if they don't think the ball can be caught, they are going to be moving. That's what runners do. They know the difference between a hit and an infield fly nearly as well as I do.
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I bet that last sentence is true.
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I can't possibly be alone, amongst this crowd, in recognizing there are balls hit, which land in the infield, and that were not catchable (a poorly/miss-hit ball that goes 25 feet up and lands 15 feet in front of home plate between the 1, 2, and 5 positions - it will probably roll foul anyway).
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You're kidding, right? We're talking about games where the players shave, and a catcher can't get under a ball 15 feet in front of the plate? Whur you bean, keed?
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Even if the entire defensive team is leaning against the outfield fence with their mits on the ground, smoking cigars and exchanging phone numbers with buxom blonde fans, I will not call that hit an infield fly. Neither should you. But, if you are loud enough and eject enough coaches, I think you could get away with it.
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I'm interested in why you think seasoned (read good) umpires have to resort to ejections to get coaches and players to accept their decisions. In my career of over 400 NCAA D1 games, I ejected one coach. I ejected five Federation coaches in about 2000 games.
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I still am immensely impressed with the caliber of people invovled in this thread. I am anxiously looking forward to their excited responses. Page 4 here we come!
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Finally, you've said something I agree with: The "caliber of people involved" here in the Forum is very high -- with a few notable exceptions, of course.