how high does a ball need to be for a infield fly?

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by mkolton828

Situation:

We have runners on first and second with one out. Our batter hits a ball that has little bit of loft on and the 2nd baseman camps under the ball in the infiield grass. Umpire does not call infield fly and 2nd drops ball on purpose and throws to 3rd (force out). third bsaeman throws to seond (force out). End of the inning.

i go to umpire and ask why there was no IFF called. He said that the ball did not high enough to warrant the call. He claims that the ball has to get higher than the backstop fence to call it. I claimed you can call IFF anytime b/c the rule is to protect the runners on base.

Tell mje your opinions, was I wrong or was the umpire wrong.

By the way we lost the game by 1 run.

The umpire was wrong. As Rut said, there is no height requirement, and to use the backstop as the measurement is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard (including things I've said). Backstops come in all shapes and sizes, and what are we supposed to do, look at the backstop then back to the ball to make our decision?

While I was not there, and cannot know for sure if the IFF rule should have been called, it sounds like it should have. You stated that the second baseman had "camped out" under it. To me, this indicates some kind of arc, and not a line drive, which now qualifies it for the IFF rule.

If, on the other hand, the umpire did not (as he stated) feel that the ball met some standard in order to become an IFF, then he definitely should have invoked Rule 6.05(L), which was quoted by SAUmp. An infielder cannot intentionally drop a fair fly ball or a line drive. If no IFF was called, the umpire should have then called "Time," and then called the batter out and returned the runners to their position at the time of the pitch.