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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: An infield-fly-rule question
Message-ID: <699@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 20-Oct-85 04:35:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.699
Posted: Sun Oct 20 04:35:38 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Oct-85 05:01:25 EDT
References: <475@ttidcb.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 20

> 
>     My question is the following:  The infield
>     fly  rule was created to disallow double plays caused by intentionally
>     dropped pop flies.

Not quite.  The rule was created to prevent double plays gotten by trickery,
by someone freezing the runners by pretending to catch a ball, and then letting
it drop and forcing them out.  The idea is to prevent a situation where the
baserunners don't have any "right" thing to do.  If there is only a man on
first, the right thing for him to do on a pop-up is stay there, because to
run guarantees a double play.  With men on first and second and less than two
out, both runners would have to try to out-guess the fielder: if the fielder
lets it drop, then the right thing to do is run, but if he catches it, the
right thing to do is stay put.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."

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