Rules, Rules, Rules

 Rule 2.00 defines the Infield Fly as, “a fair fly ball (not including a line drive or a bunt) which can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort, when first and second, or first, second, and third bases are occupied before two are out."

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, theright of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Here we have two cornerstones of the American Way of Life. Up top, in case you're unfamiliar, is the Infield Fly Rule. Below is the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. The Infield Fly Rule is more than one hundred years old. The Second Amendment is older by about a century. And yet, these two bits of American ephemera continue to puzzle those who encounter them after all this time. 

Go ahead and ask someone attending a Major League Baseball game to explain Rule 2.00. There will be those exceptions who can quote it in its entirety, but most will tell you that it has to do with flies on the infield. Just because they can't explain it doesn't mean they don't know and love the game any more or less. 

You'll get a similar response outside an NRA rally. There are those who can recite the Second Amendment as if it were a tattooed on their chest, which in some case it is. If you ask them what it means, they will most likely tell you that it means that we can all own guns. As many as we want. And the government cannot take them away because nobody infringes on their guns. 

So the good news about the Infield Fly Rule is that, as far as my research can make out, no one has ever died because of its improper application. It is up to the Umpire's discretion as to whether or not "ordinary effort" was used by the infielder. 

The Second Amendment? Well there have been a lot of folks buying guns "legally" and later using them to kill others "illegally." And while those buying these boatloads of guns insist that it is their Right, there hasn't bee much discussion of how the "well regulated Militia" fits into all this. Does it mean that when you buy your nine millimeter or your AR-15 that you are joining up to an ad hoc army of citizens ready to defend us all from invading enemies? It seems like most of those tattooed individuals begging us to pry their weapons from their cold dead hands are not interested in foreign invaders as much as they are in those who would keep them from having those killing machines in the first place. The parents of dead school children. The families of church goers who were mowed down by the Right not to just Bear Arms but to use them to break the First Commandment. Thou shalt not kill. 

My most morbid take here would involve a mass shooting at a baseball game. Of course, Major League Baseball has a rule that prohibits weapons from being carried into their stadiums, so if you brought a gun to kill the umpire, you'd be breaking the rules.