infield fly/runners interference

[largeone59]

Originally posted by justbaseball
Talked to a pretty high level umpire today and asked about it and he said the same thing as the other umpire...unless intentional interference, no double play.

Bottom line is this, he said. Infield fly causes batter to be out and you therefore cannot interfere with trying to get the same guy out a 2nd time (there was no other play other than on the batter...the runners were frozen and not attempting to advance). If on the other hand intentional, then you would be interfering with the intent of advancing your runner at 3rd for example.

He also said that since the ball was not in the vicinity of the baseline, that there should not be interference anyways.

Kind of interesting to hear all the different opinions...not sure I feel any closer to the answer.

I'd have to disagree with your "high level" umpires.

First: Interference can take place anywhere. It doesn't have to be just in the baseline. He's also not interfering with "getting the guy out a second time," but rather interfering with F6 fielding a batted ball.

Second: I do believe this is a double play when there is interference on an infield fly. Let's say that there is a popup to F6 and infield fly is called. R2 obviously (unintentionally) interferes with F6 catching the ball. The ball squirts away and R3 scores. Those "high level" umpires would let that play stand with no interference call??

That is my humble opinion.

To sum up: batter out on IFF. R2 out for interfering with F6 fielding a batted ball. Rule 7.09(L)