Weekend BP: Can you explain the infield fly rule without looking it up?

Good morning, baseball fans!

I wanted to try something new and (hopefully) fun this weekend. That’s right, a pop quiz! Kind of.

One thing I’ve noticed about sports fans is that when you get them together, they like to argue. Sometimes about things that are completely subjective, and sometimes about things that are well-defined (but no one can seem to remember said definitions). One of those things that people like to argue about are rules and what they really mean.

That was an incredibly tortured way of getting to the point I’m trying to get to. Which is that I could ask 10 different baseball fans to explain the infield fly rule to me and get 10 different answers.

So that is the quiz today. Without looking it up, try to give me your best explanation of the infield fly rule. And for bonus points, give me a completely made-up explanation that is just plausible enough to convince someone who is not a baseball fan.

I was planning to go first, but I can’t seem to figure out how to spoiler tag on our new platform. However, I did write out an answer before I realized that. And upon checking the actual rule, I would have to give my answer a 25% score for accuracy. Which is not great.

So I will go for the extra credit and give a made-up “definition” instead:

“The infield fly rule is used when a player on the field has their zipper down and the umpire notices and tells everyone to turn around so they can adjust it.”

Can you explain the infield fly rule without looking it up?