IFR fake?
 

Fly balls can be hard to judge from behind their flight path. Do umpires ever get faked by fielders into drawing an IFR call on a deep fly ball? If after calling the batter out (say if the umpire's working solo behind the plate), an umpire sees the ball leave the field in a place that would otherwise result in a home run, is he allowed to reverse the "out" call?

Would it be unsportsmanlike conduct for fielders to move toward a shallow spot in an attempt to draw an IFR call? Or would you never presume it to be the umpire who's the target of such fakery rather than the opponents?

If you were in that plate umpire's position, would you try to delay making an IFR call until you saw baserunners playing halfway?

No.

And I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference between a ball that can be caught by an infielder and a potential home run.

How? if you only watch the fielder and never peek at the ball in flight? :D

The strength behind a ball hit so high that it could be confused with an IFF yet it continued to travel far enough to clear the fence would be so amazing that the batting team should just automatically win.

I don't think this is a real situation, or one that anyone needs to worry about happening.

Of course you'd reverse that call of "out". The IFF rule is in place to protect the offense. Why would you ever deny them more?

Additionally, a ball over the fence is out of play. The defense certainly isn't going to be placed at a disadvantage by changing the call.

I'll bet this is just bait for a follow-up question.

Based on his posts in other forums, I'd tend to agree...

Why would an infielder want to draw an IFF call - there is no advantage and a big disadvantage.

An F4 could try to deke a pop-up on a shot to the gap or some such -- trying to get the runners to stop or retreat.

I can't even fathom what a disadvantage would be... the advantage would, of course, be an undeserved out on the batter-runner.

That said, this whole idea that an infielder could dupe an umpire into making an IFF call on a ball that will not be easily caught by an infielder is extremely absurd.

If a runner doesn't see a shot to the gap he deserves whatever happens to him.

Other than that as a fielder you don't want the runners to retreat on a popup - it reduces the possibility of doubling them off.

As soon as an IFF is declared the runners just go back and stand on the base, knowing they will not be required to run. You've lost any potential to double them off. So no advantage there. It's a disadvantage. You want them off the base - but to do that you do NOT want an IFF declared.

Rich, I agree 100% with you and also I think the whole scenario is a bunch of BS. Not even going to waste time addressing it.

No, not unless you use Braille to communicate on full time basis or have no idea what your doing out there.

I'm glad that's the case. I was afraid baseball procedures might be hyper-technical and over-rule common sense.

If I could think of one, I'd ask it. But nobody's answer has given me reason to ask one.

I will say, though, that unless I'm especially bad at it, judging a fly ball is hard. I remember as an outfielder trying out for the JV coming in on a ball that wound up landing far over my head. Where I'd thought it was going to come down was actually the apex of its flight. Or course it didn't help that I was looking into the sun. (It might also have helped if I'd worn glasses. I gradually became myopic and astigmatic starting in my teens, but didn't get glasses until I was 25.) Probably I'd've been better off getting to one side of the direction of its flight instead of first moving to directly in line, where there was 0 parallax and it just looked like it was going up & down. If I were watching from behind the plate, same problem.

And that is the exact reason why we are taught to wait as late as possible to make the IFF call, to ascertain that is within the guidelines of truly being an IFF and that it will be caught with "ordinary effort".