cfb, I think the idea is to reduce the amount of judgment that the umpire is forced to make, especially on the fly like that. Obviously judgment calls are inevitable, but asking an umpire to evaluate whether a double play is possible if the fielding team intentionally lets the ball drop on every fly ball is a recipe for even more controversy than we had yesterday.

I don't see how.(assuming you aren't talking about restrictive laws which purpose was designed to limit a minority type of crap) This rule was designed to prevent gaming of a fly ball into a double play. The ump should react according to what is reasonably possible, not what the letter of the rule says, especially since it's a judgement play per the actual rule.

Giving umpires the authority to decide on a whim whether to apply a rule as written or not is just a spectacularly bad idea. Yes you would get some calls like yesterday, where you can make an arguable case that not applying the rule would be fairer. But for each of those you'd have dozens of cases that are at least as controversial, where applying the rule as written would have been fairest. And on top of that, you create an environment, where players can never be sure whether an umpire will apply a rule as written or not. That's just a recipe for chaos.

Just considering the most basic umpire duty, calling balls and strikes. I can't understand how anybody could look at how umpires handle that, and think that giving them more authority to bend and break the rules would lead to more fairness.

An ump would have to have 4 sets of eyeballs and a scout's knowledge of baserunners and infielders to adjudge likelihood of gaming success. Let's see. 0.00000001 likelihood is okay, but 0 is not. What tha -.

It's a frickin infielder. It's enough that the set of instances rule includes completely covers subset of gaming instances. And if the infielder drops the ball in non-gaming situation, likely that failure is penalized by having baserunners advance. Hey, they did. So what's the ####### about.

Considering that the rule is in effect with <2 outs and >1 runner in a force position, it's entirely about gaming DPs. (Hint: the batter is expected to run it out, would be at first, and thus would not be the back-end of a DP.)

Considering that the rule is in effect with <2 outs and >1 runner in a force position, it's entirely about gaming DPs. (Hint: the batter is expected to run it out, would be at first, and thus would not be the back-end of a DP.)

Sure, I don't dispute what the rule is about. I'm merely pointing out how the rule is to be executed. And there is simply no mention of the DP. In fact, in the comment section under the Definition of Terms for IF Fly, it specifically says the umpire is to rule "whether the ball could ordinarily have been handled by an infielder - not by some arbitrary limitation such as the grass or the base line."

On necessarily disagreeing on what's in the text, but the arbitrary limits rejected are topographic.

Wiki! Forgot about that thing... I was glad we had it.

Hey Joe, do you know who I am? Just wondering.

A guy whose argument style is better suited to Bleacher Report?

It's funny - he asked me the same thing.

I guess I'm supposed to know who he is. Rob Wood - is it Rob Base?

EDIT: I guess I should have kept reading. So to answer, no, I didn't know who he was. But I'm sure even Steven Hawking miscalculates the tip on his bill once in a while.

Don't know if anyone has suggested this yet (haven't read the whole thread), but couldn't an infielder "deke" the umpire and act as Kozma did, to avoid a difficult/impossible catch? Call for the ball, act like he's camped under it, get the infield fly call while the ball drops somewhere between him and the LF. The LF could play deeper that way, and they could do this deke on any ball between them. The umpire is obviously watching the SS so he doesn't know where the ball is going to land. If done often enough, the umpire will probably catch on and not call it (or maybe the 3rd base ump won't fall for it at all), but that theory just further reinforces that this was a bad call. Some of these "deke" plays wouldn't look too much different than this one did (actually, with less movement from Kozma, the deke would probably look more like an infield fly than this play did).

Maybe they should just instruct the LF/RF line umps in the playoffs to NOT make any infield fly calls -- just leave those to the normal base umps. I agree that there positioning would probably give them a better feel for the call.

Believe it or not, I'm linking a different BTF thread here, because it's excellent but I think that too many people will avoid it due to the HAROLD REYNOLDS portion of the headline.

It is very good.

# 260 - Thank you, Lassus. That is indeed very good.

DB

Yes, that Harold thread makes it very clear. I was wrong above to criticize how the play was called. Seems like the umpires had it under control quite normally.

I cant believe ppl are still going on about this. The ump called it strictly in accordance with the rule as written. The rule says nothing about whether a DP is possible, how can you argue that, when it's not in the rule? You want umps to call it strictly by the letter that's a good thing.

If Kozma had simply made the catch with is at likely a 99% event, then we arent even having this discussion. The only reason we are having this discussion is cause Kozma backed off AFTER the ump had already ruled it an INF fly. Its similar to calling the time out and then something happens you dont like.

Ask yourself this: if there was no IFF call, would you have ruled it an error? It suggests to me the effort is ordinary, not routine but not extraordinary.

The idea that a professional ballplayer cant normally make a catch on a ball while he's running or backpedaling 2 mph is insane. we've seen horrid calls, this is not one.

the link to the video is excellent. The timing of the call is consistent with other calls. ANd the area it took place is consistent with other calls. You ought to give the ump credit for doing it by the book This is what we want.

just for the record, in the bottom of the 6th inning of this game (6/25/1972) I saw dave cash/clemente/gene alley turn a DP vs the Cubs on a pop fly hit to short right center. Cash's back was turned to the infield when he fell down making the catch he flipped to clemente who flipped it to second base to double off the runner. I know the fly was in short right center, dont know the exact distance.....

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN197206250.shtml

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Torre was correct; it was a judgment call that could not be protested. Holbrook was wrong; it was not a ball that could be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort. It did not satisfy the letter of the rule and certainly did not satisfy the spirit.

Holbrook was correct. The ball could have been caught by the SS with ordinary effort. People are getting confused by the fact that the SS peeled off, but if the SS had simply muffed the play and dropped the ball that he was clearly going to catch with ordinary effort, nobody would be questioning the call.

It is not possible for Holbrook to predict that the SS is about to peel off, any more than it is possible for Holbrook to predict that the SS (or any fielder) will be there and just screw up the catch.