I’m creating a page for each WC game so we can keep the talk somewhat organized. Here’s video of the controversial infield fly call. (Link works now — sorry, MLB changed it on the fly.)
Braves-Cardinals Wild Card Talk
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b, I found a note on Big League Stew saying the last upheld protest was of a “Cardinals-Pirates game in 1986 that was called by rain too early.” They also mention a list of upheld protests on Retrosheet, but their link doesn’t work.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/The-last-time-a-protested-game-was-actually-uphe?urn=mlb,242095
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This might be the most interesting upheld protest: “Even this game was less of a farce than another ordered replay, of the second game of a doubleheader between Brooklyn and Philadelphia in 1947. Pennsylvania law dictated that Sunday games must end no later than 6:59 p.m. The score was tied 4-4 at the end of six innings as that hour approached. The Dodgers got a run in the top of the seventh, causing the Phillies to try to stall so the game would be called and the score revert to the previous inning’s tie. The Dodgers tried to make outs,… Read more »
Looks like the retrosheet website is back up:
WTF? The rule’s designed to keep the fielders from turning a double play by allowing a ball to drop. There’s no way the Cardinals could have turned two by allowing that ball to drop–I doubt if they could have even gotten the guy at third. Not to mention the ump making the call just before it hit the ground.
Terrible call, Braves have a definite beef here. Bases loaded and one out, replay the game from that point.
I disagree, Jim. No question it was a bad judgment call and it hurt the Braves. But the rule is invoked to protect the team at bat, the presumption at that point being that the fielder is in the unfair position to select a no-risk one-out-or-two strategy that counters whatever he observes of the runners’ positions. The umpire’s ruling took that option away, with the intent of benefiting Atlanta. Obviously his intent was the product of bad judgment, and it just happened that he made the call at the moment the play dissolved, so it appears doubly idiotic – the… Read more »
epm, I read your post to basically say that you can’t appeal a judgement call, which I agree with.
To be fair, the Braves still had great chances in the last 3 innings and failed to cash in. And they played the single most awful defensive game I have even seen in the playoffs. They did not deserve to win this game, not even close.
I was going a little stronger, Jim. If you could appeal a judgment call, like a ball/strike safe/out call – as you now can a foul/home run call – the correctness of the call could be measured objectively via replays (in principle – there are always bordelines too close even for HDTV). The judgment concerns what occurred. But a judgment about whether a fielder will need more than ordinary effort or whether the runners need to be protected is prospective and therefore subjective in principle; replay can’t provide the answer, except through the outcome. Which is not to say I… Read more »
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Attention, grammarians and logicians — can anyone parse the following sentence, an actual part of the MLB infield fly rule?
“Rule 2.00 (Infield Fly) Comment: On the infield fly rule 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 lines.”
Um … ?
Starting the second clause with “not by….” should refer to a “by…” in the first clause — but the only one to be found is “by an infielder.” It just doesn’t make sense.
John A, I married a Phi Beta Kappa English major (Yale, no less), so let me give it a shot. Delete the last phrase after the hyphen. It merely says what is not dispositive-proximity to grass or baseline. That leaves you with a pop fly at any place on the field, limited only by whether the ball could ordinarily be handled by an infielder. Emphasis on “ordinarily”, so no crazy back to the infield over the shoulder diving catches. That leaves you only one alternative. A pop fly hit high enough or close enough so a normal infielder, without a… Read more »
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Well the wording is horrid, nonsensical (words seem to be missing, or something) but the intent is clear: the commment is saying that the umpire is to use his or her judgment about the degree to which the play was handle-able by the infielder, and is not to be limited to the question of whether the ball stayed within some literal, boundary-defined notion of the “infield”. Or to put it another way, even if a ball goes beyond the infield dirt it could be an infield fly, and if it stays inside the infield dirt it might not be an… Read more »
“- the offense can take unjust advantage by having the runners run.
Ball caught, they can’t be doubled up.”
That’s incorrect. If the ball is caught, the runners still have to tag up to advance, and can be doubled off if they don’t.
The only difference is that when the infield fly rule is invoked the batter is automatically out, so there is no force in effect if the fly is not caught.
So apparently MLB’s twitter feed used to read: “We don’t understand the infield fly rule, either”. They’ve changed it after tonight’s controversy. Screen caps here:
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While thinking about the controversial infield fly call and about the intent and application of the rule, this occurred to me: The rule is intended as a protection for the offense. But we’ve all seen many times where it benefited the defense — it looked like the ball would be caught, and the rule was invoked, but the ball fell safely for one reason or another. Why should the defense ever benefit from a rule meant to protect the offense? Isn’t it possible to protect the baserunners some other way, without calling an automatic out? Of course it is. Instead… Read more »
Intriguing, but don’t like it. Runners on 1+@, one out. Same type of play. Fly rule is called, both runners take off. Only one of the runners is at risk, so if the pop is high enough the runners get a free pass. The worst that’s going to happen is that the lead runner will be out, leaving you with the same first and second. But if the runner on second is fast, he can score, more easily than a sac fly, because he doesn’t have to wait for the ball to be caught before he leaves the base.
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John A, I’m not sure your wording change makes that much of a difference: if the infield fly rule is called, there is no force play, since the batter is deemed out, and the runners don’t have to move. Ultimately, the result is the same. Either the runners have to stay at the base to tag up, or they get released, but have to be tagged to be out. They can never be out on a force play. The only option would be to say that the batter gets to take a base in the event of a dropped ball,… Read more »
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Mike, my proposal is that the infield fly rule does not put the batter out automatically. I see that when I reworded the proposal, I deleted the initial phrase “Instead of declaring the batter out”. I was at that point aiming for a statement of what my rule should say, in its entirety, without reference to what the rule currently says. So, one more try: My version of the infield fly rule would mean ONLY THIS DIFFERENCE from any other normal play: – If the ball falls safely, the defense may not get more than one force out; if they… Read more »
John, The Autin Amendment still involves a trade-off. It lets the team at bat enjoy the fruits of a misplay in the field, but it also allows the fielding team to eliminate the baserunner of its choice without meaningful challenge – an uncommon type of baseball option, though it has a little in common with some IBB situations. (For example, retrospectively, during the late 20th century, the AA would have meant that every time Rickey Henderson was on base when an infield fly was hit, he would have been removed from the basepaths.) I wonder whether there’s any way to… Read more »
@ John Autin Your rule is absolutely perfect. The “IFF” should mean, “Defense, you cannot get a double play or a triple play by letting the ball drop. And if you let it drop, you have to complete a force play to get your out. If you get the out that’s it – all remaining runners get the base they have to go to by virtue of the batter/runner being safe at first. If the defense elects to “force” the b/r at first base, then ball is dead and all runners are given the next base. I cannot imagine a… Read more »
Recall that Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard Round the World” went over a wall whose distance from home (250 feet) was 25 feet further than the IFF. Perhaps this should be called “The IFF Heard Round the World”. Again, I really like the Autin Amendment. Without fail, in a botched up IFF situation, it seems the offense ALWAYS gets screwed into a double play. Recall that the WHOLE INTENT of the IFF rule is to prevent the defense from finagling a cheap double play. Invariably, when the ball falls to the ground everybody brain farts and a double play results. “Everybody”… Read more »
Jayson Stark called it the Pop Up Heard Round the World:
@E Pluribus I don’t think that would be the case at all. Let’s say the bases are loaded with Ricky on first. An IFF is called and the defense lets the ball drop so they can force Ricky and second and eliminate him from the base paths. So R2 is then entitled to third and R3 is entitled to score. That is a rather lousy trade off for just getting Ricky out when he is already bottled up at first. Again, simply let the play play itself out. If an ump judges it to be an IFF, great. All that… Read more »
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I would have upheld the protest simply because the IFF was called way, way, way too late. The rule says “When it seems apparent that a batted ball will be an Infield Fly, the umpire shall immediately declare “Infield Fly” for the benefit of the runners.. Notice the words I underlined. Taken together, the clear implication is that immediately must be soon enough to provide benefit to the runners. Obviously, this condition could not have been met in this case. The runners had to be operating on the assumption that the IFF was not in effect. Therefore, the call was… Read more »
Here’s something I’ve been wondering about….why did Kozma move away from the ball at the last second? It seems pretty clear from the video that Holliday did NOT call him off. At Kozma starts to settle in to catch the ball, Holliday starts to drift away from the ball. And when the ball falls to the ground, Holliday seems genuinely shocked/pissed and his reaction is along the lines of “wtf were you doing?”. One hypothesis is that Kozma heard the umpire’s call, but due to the noise in the stadium, mistook it for Holliday calling him off. So while I… Read more »
Ed, the ump didn’t begin to raise his arm until 5.4 seconds into the 6 second fly ball, so it seems extremely unlikely he heard the ump’s call and reacted. In fact, Kozma said after the game that “all he heard was the crowd noise”. There seems to be a narrative building on the fact that Kozma flat out lost the ball and bailed late in hope that Holliday could save him by making the catch. That to me explains why he would move away despite not hearing Holliday. Kozma after the game: “I thought I was under the ball,… Read more »
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Ed, that remains an outstanding question — I just skimmed a half-dozen google hits and found no answer. Dan McCloskey linked to this quote, the fullest one I’ve seen from Kozma himself: “I went back and I was under it, and I called for and just missed it. I bailed at the last second. I thought [the ruling] was the right call. I am an infielder. I went back and was camped under it. I thought [the umpire] made the call. All I heard was the crowd. I just bailed at last second.” http://m.mlb.com/news/article/2012100539509938/ It’s surprising that the natural next… Read more »
Bstar, good point. But I think there were two outs when Hamilton flubbed it. But your point is well taken, with less than two outs there still would not have been a thought in the world about calling it an IFF. Maybe baseball needs an arc painted on the outfield grass like the three point arc in hoops such that any pop up beyond it CANNOT be an IFF.
Furthermore, I think it would be appropriate for umps to consider the feasibility of a double play being turned with a ball dropping 225 feet from the plate. Several times during the season, you see a blooper going over the second baseman’s reach but the RF gets to it quickly and R1 gets forced at second because he had to play it “half-way” and got stuck in no-man’s land. But in 50 years of watching baseball I have NEVER seen this turned into a double play. Likewise last night, St Louis had no chance of making an out anywhere once… Read more »
Guys, what I came here for and don’t see is the difference this play even made. In other words, what is the likelihood the Braves win if the IF rule is called as it was (so how often does a team win that is down 3 runs with runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th) vs. no call and the ball drops (how often does a team win that is down by 3 runs with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 8th). My bet that it the difference… Read more »
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Brent, that’s a valid point, but no one here has been claiming that the infield fly call directly cost them the game. As to what it “did” cost them, Tangotiger’s run expectancy matrix* says the difference is about 1 full run: – Bases full, 1 out … 1.63 Runs – 3rd & 2nd, 2 outs … 0.63 Runs Anything beyond that is pure speculation. Still, it’s hard to imagine that there wasn’t a big psychological swing there, as well. Rookie shortstop playing in his 43rd MLB game makes colossal blunder that puts the tying run on base with 1 out… Read more »