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The Economics Of The Infield Fly Rule, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

No sports rule has generated as much legal scholarship as baseball's Infield Fly Rule. Interestingly, however, no one has explained or defended the rule on its own terms as part of the internal rules and institutional structure of baseball as a game. This Article takes on that issue, explaining both why baseball should have the Infield Fly Rule and why a similar rule is not necessary or appropriate in seemingly comparable, but actually quite different, baseball situations., The answer lies in the dramatic cost-benefit disparities present in the infield fly and absent in most other game situations.

The-infield fly is …