The infield fly and one good umpire.

The name of Sam Holbrook was not known to many before Friday night. The major league umpire is however known to a lot of Braves fans after a call in the playoffs last night. He correctly called an infield fly rule and may live with it forever.
A lot of people think the call of an infield fly was incorrectly called because the shortstop made the call in shallow left field. Some think Holbrook waited to long to call the infield fly which stopped a Braves rally. I thought that also until I saw the replays this morning.
The infield fly rule is defined as a fly ball, not a bunt or line drive, that can be caught by an infielder with ordinary effort. It is in effect when there are runners on first and second base. It doesn't matter if the ball is actually caught and it doesn't matter if the infielder is on the warning track, though that would likely never be called ordinary effort. The actual outline of the infield is irrelavent in relation to this law.
Holbrook made the call when the infielder stopped, waved his hands to signal he was under the ball and waited for the ball that took six seconds to fall into his glove. That is what I would call ordinary effort. Ninety five percent of the time the .call is irrelevant because the ball is actually caught. Unfortunately for Holbrook this time the ball was dropped. He immediately went in the hall of shame in Atlanta sports history.
San Holbrook doesn't remember me, it has been 18 years since I knew him so I would expect him to, but he was one of my instructors at umpire school. That connection makes me feel bad for him. He deserves a lot of credit for making a good call, at a very bad time for Atlanta fans.
It is unfortunate Chipper Jones career ended like this. The sting of this loss will go away when the doors of Cooperstown open for him. Thanks for the memories Chipper.