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

[celebur]

Originally Posted by mkolton828

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.

Two things:

1) "Camped out" is one way of putting it (and is very subjective--someone else watching this play may describe it differently). If it was a looping ("hump-backed") liner and the fielder didn't have to move much, it could be described this way and also not qualify as an IF. It really is the umpire's judgement as to whether this should be considered an infield fly or a line drive.

2) In my experience, most players that say "drops ball on purpose" mean that the fielder deliberately allowed the ball to fall untouched. I suspect that's what happened here, and if so there would be NO reason to call a deliberately dropped ball as advocated by some other posters. If it's not an IF, then allowing the ball to fall is simply smart, heads-up fielding (assuming the fielder is competent enough to execute the play--I've seen many fielders eat crow on this play).

Originally Posted by mkolton828

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.

Had I been that umpire, I would have said that the ball was hit too sharply and directly to be an infield fly. This is then entirely judgement and not open to protest. Assuming that I thought it really wasn't an IF, of course. It might have been, but I wasn't there to see it.

Originally Posted by kylejt

The definition of a fly ball is a ball hit high in the air. High is a judgement call. If you want to use your particular backstop as your benchmark, I see nothing wrong with that.

Even though that is that fly-ball definition is from the rulebook, it is grossly simplified. For example, a batter is ruled out when a line drive is caught, but 6.05a states that a batter is out "His fair or foul fly ball (other than a foul tip) is legally caught by a fielder". No mention is made of a line drive here, and by this definition, a line drive that didn't go high wouldn't be a fly ball.