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82 Wash. U. L. Q. 453 (2004)
Taking Pop-ups Seriously: The Jurisprudence of the Infield Fly Rule

handle is hein.journals/walq82 and id is 463 raw text is: TAKING POP-UPS SERIOUSLY: THE
JURISPRUDENCE OF THE INFIELD FLY RULE
NEIL B. COHEN*
SPENCER WEBER WALLER**
In 1975, the University of Pennsylvania published a remarkable item.
Rather than being deemed an article, note, or comment, it was classified as
an Aside. The item was of course, The Common Law Origins of the
Infield Fly Rule.' This piece of legal scholarship was remarkable in
numerous ways. First, it was published anonymously and the author's
identity was not known publicly for decades.2 Second, it was genuinely
funny, perhaps one of the funniest pieces of true scholarship in a field
dominated mostly by turgid prose and ineffective attempts at humor by
way of cutesy titles or bad puns. Third, it was short and to the point' in a
field in which a reader new to law reviews would assume that authors are
paid by the word or footnote. Fourth, the article was learned and actually
about something-how         baseball's infield fly rule4 is consistent with, and
an example of, the common law processes of rule creation and legal
reasoning in the Anglo-American tradition.
* Jeffrey D. Forchelli Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. Professor Cohen gratefully
acknowledges the support of a Brooklyn Law School Summer Research Stipend in the preparation of
this article. This article is an outgrowth of a paper presented by the authors at the symposium Batter
Up! From the Baseball Field to the Courthouse: Contemporary Issues Facing Baseball Practitioners
sponsored by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University.
** Professor and Director, Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, Loyola University Chicago
School of Law. With thanks to Joshua R. Fink, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Class of
2003, for his excellent research assistance.
1. Aside, The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule, 123 U. PA. L. REv. 1474 (1975)
[hereinafter Common Law Origins].
2. The author is in fact Will Stevens, a fact discovered by Professor Cohen when giving the
annual Hughie Jennings Memorial Lecture at the University of Maryland School of Law several years
ago. After delivery of the paper, in which the Common Law Origins was praised and the anonymity of
its author was bemoaned, Mr. Stevens approached Cohen and indicated that he was the hitherto secret
author. Later, this secret was revealed in print, see Roger S. Clark, Steven Spielberg's Amistad and
Other Things I have Thought About in the Past Forty Years: International (Criminal) Law, Conflict of
Laws, Insurance and Slavery, 30 RUTGERS L.J. 371, 372 n.1 (1999).
3. Common Law Origins was 6 /2 pages long and contained 48 footnotes, two of which were to
the word the in the Oxford English Dictionary. See Common Law Origins, supra note 1, at 1474
nn.l, 4.
4. An infield fly is a fair fly ball which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort, when
at least first and second base are occupied and there are less than two out. MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL,
1998 OFFICIAL RULES OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL 27 (1997) [hereinafter OFFICIAL RULES]. The
umpire shall declare Infield Fly and the batter is automatically out. Id. at 27-28. If the infielder
intentionally drops a fair ball, the ball remains in play. Id. Base runners may advance at their own risk.
Id. at28.

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