Greg Brown, John Wehner, and the Infield Fly Rule

Were you watching the Pirates-Giants game last night when the Pirates made use of this baseball intricacy to their advantage?

Here was the situation:

In the first inning the Giants had runners on first and second with no outs.  The third batter, Willy Adames hit a high pop-up that had  third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes drift towards the pitchers' mound to field.  The second base umpire immediately signaled for the "infield fly rule, batter automatically out, runners advance at their own risk." Hayes let the ball drop to the ground and then saw that the runner on second base, Heliot Ramos, was drifting just a bit too far off of second base.  Hayes quickly picked up the ball, threw to second baseman Nick Gonzales and picked off Ramos.  Double play.

That was a numbskull bit of base running by Ramos, to be sure, and Pirates Chief Propaganda Minister Greg Brown immediately jumped all over it.  "That was an unbelievable base running mistake" screamed Brownie.  "How can you be in the big leagues and do something like that" chimed in John Wehner.  "What a smart play by Hayes, and, again, an INCREDIBLE, mistake by Ramos."  Both announcers went on, well into the next inning with words to the effect that a major league player just can't let something like that happen!!!

Considering the base running acumen demonstrated by the Pirates this season (we are looking at you, Oneil Cruz) and, in fact, over the last several seasons (remember the halcyon days of Starling Marte and Gregory Polonco on the base paths?), this was a classic case of throwing stones from inside a glass house.  Perhaps the most INCREDIBLE and UNBELIEVABLE thing about this gaffe was that it wasn't a Pirates baserunner who did it.   

I will give Wehner credit for a good line though when he said that this is the kind of a mistake that a player will only make once in his career.

The whole incident also brought to mind a great line from my father, who had a lot of great lines in his life.  He said that whenever you are faced with some blowhard sports know-it-all, someone who is obviously full of shit, calmly say to him "Can you explain the infield fly rule to me?"  That will usually shut said blowhard up.