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.

The Infield Fly Rule

My Dad once told me that when he was confronted with some know-it-all blowhard, he would ask him to explain the infield fly rule, and that usually brought the bigmouth to his knees. I thought of this while watching the Pirates play the Yankees in a Grapefruit League game on TV this past Saturday.

The Yanks had runners on first and second with one out when the batter lifted a high pop-up (dare I call it a home run in an elevator shaft?) between home and third. The plate umpire immediately raised his hand signalling that the infield fly rule was in effect. Catcher Jason Jaramillo circled under the ball but the wind caught it, moved it out of Jaramillio's reach and it landed in fair territory, where Jaramillio routinely picked it up. The Yankee base runner on second, I forget who it was, seeing the ball land in fair territory then took off for third. So, a demerit for the Yank base runner on this one. Jaramillio then threw to Pedro Alvarez who had the presence of mind to tag the base runner for an inning ending double play. However, Pedro and several of his teammates apparently didn't realize that the inning was over as they returned to their positions. The TV camera only showed Alvarez and Ronny Cedeno retreat to their positions, so I don't know if any of the other Bucs stayed in place or began the trot to the dugout. Demerits to Alvarez and Cedeno. The umpires had to tell Alvarez and Cedeno that the inning was, indeed, over.

I am guessing that Joe Girardi and Clint Hurdle didn't spend a lot of time going over the infield fly rule during spring training. I am guessing that they just assumed that the players would know this rule by the time they got to a major league spring training camp.

Never assume, I suppose.