Quote:
Originally Posted by nolemmings
Sorry Al. When the umpire's arm goes up, the SS has already started to peel away from the ball. He was never camped under it either--he is backpedaling the entire time until he stops to peel away. That call did not comport with either the letter or spirit of the rule. BTW, whether in the rules or not, an OF umpire should not be allowed to call the infield fly rule.
IMO, any ball where an OF has a chance to catch it should not be infield fly by rule--end of story. How embarrassing, although not controversial, would it have been had he called IF fly and outfielder Holliday ended up making the catch.
I'm not going to say the Braves got robbed, because they did not play well enough to win and in fact deserved to lose. Whining about a play that was nothing more than the other team's boner is even a bit undignified, IMO. Finally, while I have never been a Chipper Jones fan, I wanted him to win to keep on playing-- but seeing him jog half-ass down to first base in his final major league AB (even though he got bailed out by the ump) was exactly how I will remember him.
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Completely agree with this in its entirety. Kozma backed off well before the Ump signaled "out". And the purpose of the rule is to prevent a double play (which had zero chance of happening on a ball hit that deep).
But mostly I agree with the part about Chipper Jones "dogging it" down the line. That was the most deplorable aspect of this poorly played game. Even worse than his devastating game-changing error, IMHO.