Infield fly situation
OBR rules. Bases loaded, no outs, right handed batter at plate.
Batter hits a high pop-up which could be caught by the pitcher "with ordinary effort". The umpire immediately declares "Infield Fly, Batters out if Fair!" The pitcher, upon hearing the umpire, allows the ball to fall to the ground in fair territory about half way between HP and 1B. No other fielders make an attempt on the ball. The runners, knowing this is potentially a live ball begin to advance to next base. Due to the spin on the ball, the ball abruptly skips sideways and is obviously headed to foul territory when it hits the Batter/runner in fair territory (out of the box and in route to 1B). Ball is inadvertently kicked into the dugout by the B/R (this action is in no way intentional). How do you sort out this mess? |
Call the BR out for INT.
It would have been cooler if R3 booted it, then you could have had the IFF AND INT. |
You stated that the ball was in fair territory when contacted, right? The umpire correctly announced the call, the batter is out if the ball is fair. By rule, it became fair when contacted by the BR. He was out the instant he touched it, either way. Because he interfered with the potential live ball, it is dead and the runners return to their bases. Smart pitcher. One of my 11U kids this year tried to glove a similar pop up. It hit the heel of his glove while fair and rolled into DBT. Ouch.
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Unless you have intent (and you state that you don't), I don't see any mess to clean up. Batter is out. Ball is dead. Runners back to their TOP bases. No mess at all.
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You have but two choices: Call the BR out on the IFF, because the fair ball is dead once it touches him, OR call him out for INT. You can't get two outs on the same guy, so I'd go for the later.
It's that simple. |
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What's weird about the case is that the BR is not out until the ball is fair (IFF), but it's not fair until he's out (INT). To put it otherwise: the ball touching him both makes it fair and makes him guilty of INT. I like INT. |
This play could have been a lot more interesting, with, I suspect, people landing on both sides of the argument.
Say, for example, R2 was off on the pitch, and had actually crossed 3rd before the ball hit the ground - and was just short of home when the ball contacted BR. Now what do you do with the runners? And if you've got that one straight, now have R1 similarly off base, when BR actually interferes INTENTIONALLY with F1 making the catch. |
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