The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule

[1] The brief eight-page article has vastly surpassed its modest original context, having been cited in federal and state judicial opinions and more than 100 works of legal literature.

The article is "genuinely funny, perhaps one of the funniest pieces of true scholarship in a field dominated mostly by turgid prose and ineffective attempts at humor".

[a] "Mr. Stevens described the infield-fly rule as a technical remedy for sneaky behavior that would not have occurred in the days when baseball was a gentlemen’s sport played for exercise.

He explained that the article's purpose was "to examine whether the same types of forces that shaped the development of the common law also generated the Infield Fly Rule."

Noting that England was the birthplace both of common law and of proto-baseball, Stevens discussed the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, the first team using codified baseball rules, in 1845.

"[1]:1476 Pointing out examples of dubious play from professional baseball in the 1890s that led to the infield fly rule, the article turned to its legal analogy.

Stevens argued that the infield fly rule "emerged from the interplay of four factors, each of which closely resembles a major force in the development of the common law.

Some applied the baseball and law theme to increasingly bizarre analogies, such as comparing the infield fly rule with the Internal Revenue Code.

Since these themes can easily be discussed without mentioning baseball, citations of the article seem to stem from an individual judge's sense of whimsy or wish to brighten an otherwise tedious adjudication.

[6] Another reason could simply be borrowed from legal historian Lawrence M. Friedman, commenting in his magisterial book A History of American Law, (p. 693, 2d ed.

"[8] Astonished by the fame of his short work, Stevens later said “My ego is simultaneously flattered and bruised by the notion that something I cranked out more than 25 years ago would prove to be the highlight of my professional and academic careers.”[2]