Unless you’re old and followed Puttsburgh Pirate baseball in the 1960s, you may not know Bob Prince was the radio announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates on KDKA (“Kay-dee”).<\/p>\n
Almost every game, Bob Prince would find a way to work in the “infield fly rule”, an obscure part of the rules of baseball that caused a near riot in Atlanta last night. The infield fly rule is called all the time, and few prople know when it happens. The official made the right call.<\/p>\n
The reason for the rule is fairly obvious if you understand baseball. If there are less than two outs and runners on first and second (and possibly third), if a ball is hit high in the air and shallow enough it might be caught by an infielder, the batter is automatically out, which is signalled by the umpire which signals to the runners and 1st and 3rd base coaches what they need to do. <\/p>\n
It’s entirely a judgement call – he has to quickly size up if an infielder is in range of where the ball will land, taking into consideration how high the ball is going and how deep it will go – wind can complicate that judgement.<\/p>\n
Since the runners see the ball is going to be caught, they have to return to their last base. If they don’t the fielder will throw to their base and they’ll be out, double play.<\/p>\n
So a clever fielder could drop the ball on purpose, then throw the ball to third and force out the runner at third and throw to second and force out the runner at second – double play. (Or maybe even triple play)<\/p>\n
So the rule was created to plug the hole so the team on the field can’t benefit from deliberately dropping the ball.<\/p>\n
The umpire makes the call immediately when he determines the rule applies. It doesn’t matter which players try to catch the ball, whether someone actually catches it, or where the ball actually lands. The batter is out the moment the arm goes up. If he had to wait until he was really really sure, that leaves the runners not knowing if they need to advance or return to base. <\/p>\n
Atlanta’s “fans” proved they know very little about baseball. They can kiss that baby goodbye! until next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Unless you’re old and followed Puttsburgh Pirate baseball in the 1960s, you may not know Bob Prince was the radio announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates on KDKA (“Kay-dee”). Almost every game, Bob Prince would find a way to work in … Continue reading