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Many a baseball fan in recent years has discovered a newspaper account relating an amazing first-person account of a game that took place in 1893: According to former minor league pitcher William Wild Bill Setley, a teammate of his who broke the last bat on the field had to step up to the plate in an extra-inning game wielding an axe, and his swing cut the pitched ball in two, sending half of it over the outfield fence while the other half popped up harmlessly on the infield. After some dispute with the umpire, the batter was awarded half a run, and his team was declared the winner by a score of 2 1/2 to 2: While many readers have enjoyed the anecdote for the tall tale it is, without regard for its literal veracity, many others have wanted to know if the story is actually true as told by Setley. In that regard, the first thing to note is that Setley's account as excerpted above was given and published in 1937, some 44 years after the fact. Across the span of several decades, memories blur and fade, and potentially corroborating witnesses disappear and die off. And we also note that as far back as 1900, long before this particular version of Setley's half a baseball was publicized, he was already well known as a wag and a great story teller: The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) helped us fill in some of the blanks by providing additional information: This material from SABR confirms that although he got some details wrong (such as the year, score, and opposing team), Setley's account did conform to the records of an 1894 game between Shenandoah and Allentown that was won in the 11th inning on a dramatic hit by Allentown pitcher Mike Kilroy. However, two other key points emerge from SABR's information: 1) Contemporaneous and detailed reporting of the game in question made absolutely no mention of Kilroy's breaking the last available bat, using an axe in its place, cutting the ball in two with his swing, knocking half a ball over the fence, or being awarded half a run. (Kilory simply made a good safe hit that drove in a run, according to reporting of the day.) 2) The very same cut a ball in half story was told by and about other players as well, right down to the detail of the game-winning score being 2 1/2 to 2. Notably, the 1894 game Setley referred to ended with a final score of 7-6, so clearly he dredged up the 2 1/2 to 2 detail from somewhere other than his own experience and memory. With that data in mind, we think we can safely put this one down as a tall tale that belongs in the too good to be true category (otherwise known as False).
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