re rule book trivia in article io maine maine edu ryan robbins io maine maine edu writes this week s play it took three days to get to us but i ll try anyway as i naturally haven t seen the answer with runners at first and second and one out the batter hits an easy pop fly to the third baseman a the umpires declare the infield fly rule and the third baseman lets the ball drop the runner at second heads for third and the third baseman flips the ball to the short stop who tags the bag before the runner safe the correct call is infield fly batter out if fair runners may advance at own risk gotta tag up if caught etc it is not a force and the pop was not caught so regardless of whether the ss tags b or b it wasn t clear above he hasn t got the runner out b the umpires don t declare the infield fly rule and the third baseman allows the ball to drop and throws to the short stop who tags the runner from second while the runner is between second and third out see rule l approved ruling below in this case the umpire has decided for whatever reason that the infield fly rule doesn t apply sounds like a bad call here but that s not the point the batter is not out so a force situation is created therefore the runner is out unless by rule l the ball is dead and the batter is safe then i guess the runners would advance unmolested i can t really tell from l that the ball is dead in this situation what s the call in a and b pertinent rules definition of infield fly when an infield fly is called runners may advance at their own risk if on an infield fly rule the infielder intentionally drops a fair ball the ball remains in play despite the provisions of rule l the infield fly rule takes precedence l a batter is out when an infielder intentionally drops a fair fly ball or line drive with first first and second first and thrid or first second and third base occupied before two are out the ball is dead and the runners or runners shall return to their original base or bases approved ruling in this situation the batter is not out if the infielder permits the ball the drop untouched to the ground except when the infield fly rule applies jim dean internet jimdean bnr ca national capital baseball league mild mannered computer scientist phone president pitcher my knuckler bell northern research ottawa ont booth not too legit to hit phone fax phone
