Infield Fly Rule

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by rbmartin

These were 8th graders playing on a 90' diamond. I doubt that they would try anything cute with the winning run on 3rd.
Anyway, I was there, it was my call and I'm sticking to it. I just want to learn from it for the future.

You may be right, then, that DP was not possible. Luckily, however, we don't have to make that judgement call. ALL we need to worry about is "is the ball catchable by an infielder with ordinary effort". No need for us to get to the reason for the rule and see if it applies. We just need to call it.

Wasn't really disagreeing with your judgement - IFF is always judgement. However, in READING your judgement - by YOUR description of the play, it should have been IFF, and hopefully it will be next time.

(BTW - you say 'try anything cute' above... it's not necessary that the failure to catch the ball be intentional (i.e. trying something cute). If you had not called IFF, and for whatever reason the fielder failed to catch it, you could have had a huge mess on your hands. Suddenly you have 3 runners who have to run (and at 8th grade... who might not run immediately and/or whose coaches might tell them not to run - seeing what appears to be an infield fly) and are forced. Assumedly with the winning run on 3rd, that F4's going home with it. Now, you have a force there, while if you'd called IFF, it would not be a force - not calling it you've changed the play. (And who knows, coach may have sent this runner for the tag play at home when he saw the fly ball dropped ... now he's at an unintended disadvantage because IFF was not called - he can no longer take advantage of the drop, but rather is in more danger than he should be in.)