What is the infield fly rule of FIRST?

[nickma]

Many of you are describing the scoring system as the infield fly rule but that not what it is. The easiest was to describe and compare the scoring to this year’s game is how professional hockey standings and soccer standings are figured out. In each case you get so many points for a win and so many for a tie. After that if teams are tied a pre established list of tie breakers are used to determine a high seed.

The Infield fly rule is a rule that, no one but the officials really understand. Here is a great example for a game last year. The bases were loaded and there was one out. The batter hit a pop up to the infield and he was called out by the infield fly rule. The fielder dropped the ball and the player at third ran home. The fielder threw the ball to the plate and the catcher touched home plate, however there is no force on anymore so he was not called out. The runner walked around the catcher touched the plate and the ump indicated that he was safe. The catcher had no idea what just happened.

In this years game a great example of that is teams that are no touching the ground but then aren't given credit for the hanging points. I have seen a number of times this year were a team will be off the platform but will not be given the points because they are using of used the vertical bars to get up of help stay up. Its had to explain to someone that if those bars were not there would the robot still be able to hang. Anyone at BAE saw this happen when 319 was hanging upside down but resting on the vertical bar. The refs concluded that if that bar was not there it would have sagged and touched the platform.

Those are my opinions. I will say that the rules to this years game were very well written and props need to be given to that.