What is considered the infield in baseball?

Answer 1

I believe this is instituted with a runner on base so that the infielder can't just let the ball drop in front of him and then turn a double play. The infield fly rule protects the runner already on base by calling the batter out immediately. The infield fly rule: A fair fly ball which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort with less than two outs and 1st and 2nd base, or all bases are occupied. The umpire shall signal the batter out immediatly so as to alert the baserunners. The object of this rule is to prevent infielders to purposely let a ball drop to get an easy double or triple play. As has been noted, the purpose of this rule is to prevent the defensive team from getting an easy double or triple play. To understand this better, consider what would happen in this situation if there were no infield fly rule, in other words, what did happen, on many occasions, before the rule was created. Braves v Dodgers, Braves batting, no outs, bases loaded. Braves batter hits a pop-up that can be easily caught by the Dodgers pitcher in fair territory. Catching the ball would result in one out. But, the runners cannot advance until they know whether the ball will be caught. A devious catcher might just let the ball drop untouched, then pick it up, step on home plate (runner at third out), then throw to third, where the third baseman steps on the bag (runner on second out), then throw to second, where the second baseman steps on the bag (runner on first out), completing a triple play. Now, the Braves COULD employ a different strategy, sending all runners to the next base as soon as the ball is hit. But, in this case, the fielder would actually CATCH the ball, and still be able to turn a triple play, by catching two of the runners off their bases without tagging up. So there is no effective strategy to prevent a triple play (or double play if runners only on first and second) on an infield fly. Or is there? Turns out, there was no need to adopt the infield fly rule, if the offense was as sly as the defense was. All runners would immediately return to their bases. The batter would immediately take off for first, and then turn toward second base. In the process, he would, of course, pass the runner who stayed at first. By rule, the batter is immediately out for passing a runner who should be ahead of him. Also by rule, this removes the force on the other runners, making it impossible to turn a double or triple play (so long as the runners remain on their respective bases). This would have exactly the same effect as an infield fly rule, right down to the irrelevance of whether the ball is actually caught or not. So, the infield fly rule is not necessary.

Answer 2

The infield fly rule came into existence in 1895. However, the rule stated that it was only in effect when there was one out. This was changed in 1901 to include being in effect when there were no outs as well as when there was one out.

Answer 3

The skinned (dirt ) portion of the field.