I'm confused. If You had three outs, how did you play on? How did you only have two outs when play continued on? What happened to the third out? Just because the IFR was in effect does not prevent the other out from happening. The failure of the players to hear or to heed the call does not change the fact that the IFR was on. Am I missing something here?

Ed's originial post:
<i>I had a situation in a national fast pitch tournament that had a bit of this same taste to it. A1 at second A2 at first one out. Batter hits fly ball that is going to land just in front of second base. I am third base umpire and am patiently waiting for the call from the plate umpire. We had already communicated that the infield fly situation was in effect. The first base umpire was in the B slot and nothing comes from either umpire. <u>At the last minute I raise my fist and call infield fly.</u> The play continued on because not everyone heard the call from an unusual spot and the <u>shortstop picked up the ball uncaught and tossed it to her second baseman who touched the runner on second base then touched second base for the third out.</u> Everyone from the defence was all happy and everyone from the offence was going crazy about the call not being made. Little did they know that the third base coach the thirdbaseman and I all knew what was happening. These were womans A players and they all knew the game very well. The shortstop made the play look like she could not handle the catch with ordenary effort and in turn made others believe this. Although she turned the double play with the easiest of effort. After the dust cleared and both coaches were on the field we got it all cleared up, that it was not only the plate umpires call and the intent of the rule was to keep from happening what did happen. Both coaches were satisfied and <u>we played on with runners on first and second and two outs.</u> The next batter hit a single and scored the winning run from second. Oh I forgot to mention that this was the bottom of the 13th and we were tied 1 to 1.</i>
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Ed, Why were there runners on 2nd and 3rd and only two outs?
By we got it all cleared up, Are you saying you changed the IFR
call and sent runners back to bases, declaring only the batter
out? The underlined portion of your posts shows IFR called, out
2, third out on runner at 2B. How and why are you continuing?

Seems you had a lot of the same questions I had, Glen.

If the IF is enforced, there is no force out. Ed said F4 touched the runner ON 2B. No out there. Then touched 2B. Still no out there.

Seems to me like it should have been 1st & 2nd w/2 outs.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough with my explanation. We had called the IFR because I called it from third base, and none of the runners on base moved due to the force being taken off. So the batter was out on the IFR and there were no outs on the bases because the runner at second didn't move and was still on the base when tagged and there was no force at second for the runner that would have been forced to leave first had there not been an IFR in effect.

That must be it. For some reason I fixiated on the "for the third out" part of the statement, then noticed that later there were only two. Chalk it up to late at night, and a couple of English variants of adult beverages!

Speaking of which, what are you doing up so late Mr. Rowe?

Ok, reread post. OOOOps

Thanks Mike for pointing out the obvious.

Thanks Ed for explanation.