Infield fly
 

IF in effect, I'm in C, fly ball (not sky-high, but higher than a humpback liner). Whatever... I didn't think F5 was camped out under it so my hand doesn't go up.
She doesn't catch it (of course). Not a catch and drop, just a flubbed shoestring miss, near 3B, custom made for a double-play. Which does happen.
OC freaks, "why no IF!!"
My partner defuses the situation "I have an IF"

We send the runners back to 1B & 2B, and everybody's happy. Even defense.

No way I'm overrulling this but I'm thinking, "This can't be right, right?"

I've heard it's never too late to invoke IF (to an extent), so is this the correct way to reconcile the late call (because the late call put the runners in jeopardy)?

No defensive player has to be camped out under an IFF fly for it to be one. The rule merely says catchable with normal effort. If in the umpires judgement the ball got high enough and one of the infielders had a chance to catch the ball with normal effort, it is an IFF.

Also, IFF is actually the plate umpires call, and, no umpire has the authority to overrule anothers call. If the plate umpire felt his delay in the IFF call put the runners at jeapordy, then yes, the correct thing to do is to call the batter out on the IFF and put the base runners back to their original bases.

what rbk said...

just out of curiosity, where was F5 positioned before the pitch and where did the ball land?

F5 was a little behind the 2B-3B line and the ball was about two-thirds up the 3B line...

IFFR is actually the plate umpires PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY

I hate to pick nits, but can we change this to:

IFF is primarily the PU's responsibility.

I think that says what you meant, and doesn't imply that calling IFF is the first and most important thing a PU does.

That would depend on how badly you need to call an out, any out! (See 10U fall ball thread.) :D

And see my post about which rules are not in effect for our 10U games. :eek:

Yes, I realized that as soon as I posted, laziness factor. ;)