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Boy how quickly some get their hackles up to defend their position, instead of just taking an objective view. My point about “declared” being the apparent objective rule, has now become unchallenged by fact (only by opinion) since you have had several opportunities to point out specifically where it says in black and white in the rule book, your assertion, that an IFF is as it happens versus when it was declared. I must therefore assume you could not find it in the book (nor could I), that it does not exist, it is just a made up extrapolation by someone of the rulebook that is unwritten. And it is interesting how a person, who cannot objectively back up his assertion in black and white, can make such an irrefutable statement such as “you are wrong”. If I am wrong in the above, back it up with a cite of the rule that makes it cut and dry about your assertion.
While it is nice that you have some hypothetical play in some guide book that is not part of the official rule book, it is irrelevant. And even your hypothetical example, that indeed may have been an actual ruling from an actual called play in an actual game, (and I don’t dispute it did actually happen, but it is quite irrelevant), it still did not even come close to backing up your assertion that IFF is a fact when it happens, not when it is declared. By the way, even if it is some official guidebook put out by ASA, it is not part of the rulebook, the ASA official rulebook is the guiding “law”, not some compendium of historical rulings made in games. If it were referenced in the ASA rulebook something like, “and the Official play ruling by the National Umpire Staff is an appendix to this book and shall be considered part of this official rulebook” then I would tend to agree with you. But like I said, even your copy and paste did not back up your assertion, it only proved an umpire “can indeed” attempt to rectify a situation of a call or non-call. Even your example was a compromise, where both the offensive and defensive team still had a legit argument after the fact. The offensive coach’s argument is, you took a run off the board for me because even if the IFF had been called, our runner was entitled to advance on a dropped ball and only can be put out by a tag (no force in effect). The defensive coach has a legit argument against the compromise call because they realized it was not an IFF because it was not declared (assuming it did not meet the IFF criterion since it was not declared), and they should have been able to have the force of that runner at home. Since it was not mentioned in the example, no way of knowing it but they even had a legit shot for another out with an additional force at third. It did not give that detail so there is no way to know if they even attempted and succeeded at an additional out at third. Furthermore, how many ASA umpires in all the leagues even know about your reference book, let alone use it as a guide in settling protests. I can tell you for a fact, the umpires in the leagues I have played in have only been required to review the official ASA rulebook to get certified under ASA, not required to be versed in the compendium of historical rulings.
This exercise has been helpful and I have withdrawn my protest but only for the reason outlined in R10-3-C. i.e. the umpire has the prerogative to make the ruling after the fact. Therefore I agree that a protest has little or no chance of prevailing, because ultimately even after the fact, the umpire can change the call even on an IFF, and that after the fact ruling is just another judgment call empowered to the umpires, no matter how good or bad that judgment may be. Even your so called slam dunk of “ordinary effort” is a subjective determination that on some plays, a poll of 100 individual umpires could come up with 50 saying it could have been caught with ordinary effort and 50 saying it could not have been caught with ordinary effort. And neither one could be proved to be wrong because there is no detailed definition of ordinary effort. Bottom line is, the definition of IFF in the book is ambiguous and it is up to the umpires discretion after the fact on how to apply R10-3-c. And the objective definitions in the rule book could lead you to determine either to apply it retroactively or not apply it. It is still a judgment. One thing is clear on the intent of the rule is, it is intended to be declared verbally while the play is happening to advise both offense and defense of the situation, and it is not the intent of the rule to apply it after the fact.
Good debate and I did learn something from it. Thanks.
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