In baseball, does the infield fly rule take effect if it's a low line drive?

Question

If there's a guy on first and you're an infielder, why not just drop an ankle-high liner and go for the double play?

Answer 1

the Infield fly rule was put into place to prevent the fielder from tanking the play to get the easy outs.  The fielder doesn't have to be anywhere near the ball.  If the umpire sees the fly ball not going out of the infield, he will call it to keep the defense from turning quick double plays on dropped fly balls.

Answer 2

Because that should be ruled an intentionally dropped ball, batter declared out and runner returns to first.

This covers the line drive exception from the infield fly rule.

Off the top of my head I believe it is Rule 6.05k but it is actually 6.05l

(6.05k is the runners lane rule -- I looked to double check)

Remember -- you must have a force play possibility at third to have an infield fly situation anyway.

Answer 3

If an infielder dropped a line drive, the reaction time is much less on a fast liner. It would be really hard. Only if it's a fly ball or a pop up can the infield FLY take effect.

Answer 4

No, it has to be a fly ball or pop fly. If it applied to anything in the air that would make for a very tricky situation.  

Answer 5

because infield fly means fly ball. which gives the runners time to react and tag up. but if u drop it then the runner @ 2nd is an easy out. but on a liner runners have to read it and they have little to no reaction time.

Answer 6

Line drives and bunts cannot be infield flies.

And no, your idea won't work, because it's illegal for an infielder to deliberately drop a batted ball that is not an infield fly. If a fielder does, the ball is dead, the batter is out, and runners return to the bases occupied at the time of the pitch.

Baseballphan needs to read 6.05(l). The ball is dead when a batted ball that is not an infield fly is deliberately dropped by an infielder. The runners cannot advance.

Matthew is wrong when he says an infielder doesn't have to be near the ball for an infield fly to be called. The very definition of an infield fly is a batted ball that goes high in the air and can be caught with ordinary effort by an infielder. If an infielder isn't near the ball, it wouldn't be ordinary effort to catch it, would it?

Answer 7

No the ball has to be in the air and the infielder must be able to set up underneath it or be able to get to the ball and turn and face the plate for an infield fly to be called.

Answer 8

One thing to add to others...

Should the infield fly be close to the foul lines the umpires will state it's an infield fly "if fair".  

Only fair balls can be infield flys.  

Answer 9

Actually, ryan r, runners may advance at their own risk. Anyway, the reason there is even infield fly in the first place is so with runners on first and second or the bases loaded, the infielder cannot just let the ball bounce in order to turn a double or even triple play, which also means there cannot be an infield fly with 2 outs. If they called infield fly on a line drive it would not be preventing anything. If the infielder let the ball bounce, it would already be in the outfield, giving the runner a hit.