Originally Posted by
hfrog
Agree crowd reaction was a fowl.
But;
A) that play was in no way shape or form a valid application of the IFF. Ordinary effort is not 75' out in the outfield.
B) If it was going to be called it should have been called much earlier. The runners did not have time to return to tthier original base when he called it. The intent is to "protect" the runners from being caught in no mans land and the infielder intentionally dropping the ball to get an easy double or triple play. Had he intentionally dropped that ball he would have been lucky to get the lead runner much less get a double play.
Bottom Line: Horrid call poorly executed. And the umps and MLB are TOTDs for not owning up to it afterwards.
The IFFR specifically doesn't specify (yeah that just happened) a distance. 75 feet is less than the distance between bases. Maybe it could have been called earlier but if they would have been lucky to get the lead runner then the late call didn't hurt them anyway, other than the single out that would have resulted if it was called earlier in the first place. And it wasn't like a clean hit was taken away or anything.
If a team pins their hopes on winning on a play like that when they lost by 3 anyway its one thing to say it could have been called sooner but entirely another thing to say they were robbed. Odds are overwhelming they would have lost anyway.