Here, just watch this:

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Reynolds does a great job explaining this.

I suggest you watch the play over and over again. He doesn't signal for infield fly until Kosmos is bailing back to the IF.

You found the 1 guy on earth who agrees with the call and call it gospel.

The rule was put in place to protect the offensive team from the defensive team purposely dropping the ball and turning a double/triple play.

No way was that an infield fly rule. Even the Castro one shouldn't have been called IF fly. It's a flawedly written rule. That doesn't make it a right call. Both of those plays were the OFers ball. How the **** is it possible for that to be an IF fly?

Holy shit, the mouthpiece for MLB's own MLB network agrees with the call? It's pretty clear that MLB is circling the wagons hoping it'll go away. All because they don't want to change the postseason schedule.

Read the rule, watch the video, dipshit.

He's right.

There's no way you can substantively refute what he has to say there - the damn play is broken down frame by frame.

And for what it's worth, Reynolds is often extremely critical of MLB and the like on the network. He's by far and away the most knowledgeable guy out there right now when it comes to talking baseball.

Because that's what the rule says.

If you want to argue that the rule is written poorly (it is), fine. But as written that's the way that call goes. Infield fly is called on the outfield all the time because the rule is written to allow it (in fact, it mandates it).

He doesn't get his arm all the way up before Kozma starts forward, but he clearly starts his call right when Kozma sets his feet. Just how quickly do you need him punching at the air when that call is made?

One has to define "ordinary effort" first. To me, and virtually everyone else on the planet besides you, Reynolds, and the dumbass ump that made the call seem to think an IFer going that deep into the OF to make a play is ordinary.

I don't expect MLB refs/reps to throw their colleague under the bus.

Trying to make an argument for an IF fly when the ball should have been caught by the OFer is just ignorant, imo.

And there it goes! Towering fly ball to deep left field! OH WAIT! THE OUTFIELDER FELL DOWN! THE OUTFIELDER FELL DOWN!!! HERE COMES THE SHORTSTOP!!! Back, back, back. At the track... INFIELD FLY RULE!

And the ump in the Castro game, and the ump in other regular season games. Hell, they'll do that in softball games.

It is ordinary. That ball gets hit in a roughly similar spot probably 10 times/day during the regular season and 90% of them get caught easily. It's not a difficult play for the IFer to make at all.

When they happen with any degree of regularity, they are by their definition 'ordinary' plays requiring 'ordinary effort' from the player in question.

Kozma was standing under a falling baseball with his feet under him and his arms out for the call. At that point, his position on the field was immaterial - he was an IFer that was going to catch the baseball using ordinary effort.

Done - IF fly is called.

The people that are mostly loudly criticizing this call are the idiots like Rosenthal that didn't actually know the IF fly rule when they lost their shit (you are in the same boat, BTW). The folks that said "it's on the OF, how can it be an IF fly?" are just flat ignorant of the rules but they were so damn vehement in their objection that now they feel compelled to own it.

The guys that looked like idiots last night were not Sam Holbrook or Verducci, it was brain surgeons like Ripken and Rosenthal that didn't bother learning the rules before they started attacking them.

But go ahead, keep on defending a position you took born of ignorance. You're doing a fine job of it now that you're parsing out thousandths of a second when trying to determine if Holbrook got his had up 'immediately'.

You'll still find some dumbasses to argue with this.

I don't need to defend anything.

Damn near every talking head doesn't agree with the call. You on the other hand... Keep on trollin.

Didn't know Golden Tate posted on this board.

Wow, MLBs worst nightmare with a 1 game playoff. A single controversial, disputed call ruins a teams entire season. Fail MLB. fail.
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It technically may have been the correct call but you never actually see it GET called. A hundred balls a day drop in between the IF and OF and the runner gets on safely. This might be the first time Ive ever seen that

Eh, people are talking. Not just die hard baseball fans.

The infamous "infield fly" ball landed 225 feet away from home plate. That's approximately 100 feet beyond the distance from home to 2nd base, about 33 yards, or about 23 yards beyond Cassels maximum range for an accurate pass. Previously, the longest IF fly ball that wasn't caught landed 178 feet away from home plate, can't confirm if it was called by an outfield umpire.

In 3 days nobody outside of Atlanta will give a shit about the call. Bad calls are part of the game. Nobody was going to score on that play so there is no way to tell how it would have ended, unlike the 85' WS.