Infield Fly?

[sir_eldren]

I called a single-man game today where I called three outs on infield flies.

The first fly was a high pop-up towards the SS. It landed about 20 feet on the grass behind his normal position with F5, F6, and F7 standing around to witness. I called the batter out. Nobody complained, but the batter was a bit upset. Oh well. That was the second out and he was the 13th or 14th hitter that inning for his team.

The second fly was straight up, but not too high, and it landed right in the pitcher's glove about 5 feet in front of the mound. Virtually a textbook example of the rule.

The third fly was similar to the first, only this one went to left field rather than right. It was caught a bit further out than the first infield fly, but it was caught by the shortstop who actually parked himself and ate a donut.

As I've become more aware of infield flies and when to call them, my personal criteria is whether I can realize soon enough to point up and think it's an infield fly. If I don't have enough to time to point up and judge it to be infield(unless there's something else odd happening on the play, like a squeeze play), then it probably isn't an infield fly. But that notion has only worked for me for the last couple of weeks. I'm pretty certain I missed a lot of infield flies my first year. (

-Craig
Washington State