This is the fourteenth in a series of examinations of baseball-related legends and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of all the previous baseball legends.

Let’s begin!

BASEBALL LEGEND: A baseball game led to the creation of the flyswatter.

STATUS: Oddly enough, True.

Very often, people will credit an odd source for their inspiration behind various inventions. Almost always, we basically have to take these people at their word. Most of the time, that’s pretty easy to do, because, well, why would you lie about stuff like “I invented Band Aids because my wife kept getting cuts and burns while I was at work”?

However, in the case of the flyswatter, the influence is a bit more cut and dry, because we actually have the document where we see how baseball influenced the creation of the the first device to be called a “flyswatter.”

Dr. Samuel Crumbine was a member of the Kansas Board of Health in 1906 when Kansas was besieged, it seemed, by flies, who were both an annoyance but also a bringer of disease.

While attending a baseball game (some sources over the years say it was a softball game) in Topeka, Crumbine was struck by the term “swat” in relation to the ball.

He wrote as much in a health bulletin he did for the greater Kansas area titled “Swat the Fly!” (he also may have been influenced by the term “Sacrifice Fly,” I honestly don’t know).

So right there, we have a guy specifically citing baseball as the influence for people to “swat flies.”

Well, sure enough, a schoolteacher and Scout leader named Frank H. Rose and his Boy Scouts created “fly bat” using a yardstick and a small patch of screen (similar fly killers had already been created by various other people, but they were not known to Kansas at the time), utilizing the already known idea that screens keep flies out.

He presented it to Crumbine, who renamed it the “flyswatter.”

Soon, flyswatters were being mass produced in Kansas and handed out to citizens at State Fairs and County Fairs and, of course, fly parades.

Yep, flies were such an issue that they even had fly parades in Kansas to celebrate killing flies!

In 1914, the school children of Hutchinson, Kansas killed 224 pounds, 37 bushels of flies, for an estimated 7 million dead.

Crumbine even createda film, “The Busy Fly,” as propaganda against flies.

And all due to a baseball game!

Pretty funny.

Thanks to Thomas Fox Averill for the information about Kansas’ fly history!

BASEBALL LEGEND: A dead runner once scored in a baseball game.

STATUS: I’m Going With False

Probably the best hint that a story you’re about to hear is false is if the identical story is told about people in entirely different places.

That’s one of the reasons (but surely not the only one) that the story of a game between two small Minnesota towns in 1903 is a tall tale.

The basic gist of the story is that the semi-professional baseball team from Wilmar, Minnesota was hosting their rivals from nearby Benson, Minnesota.

The score was 1-0 in favor of Benson going into the bottom of the tenth inning.

The Wilmar pitcher, Thielman, had pitched the entire game to that point and led off the tenth with a single.

The next batter, O’Toole (like any great tall tale, only last names necessary), hits a great drive to the outfield. The ball does not clear the fence but it is WAY back and O’Toole has plenty of time to run.

Thielman, though, has just pitched ten innings of baseball and is quite tired. Still, he pushes his body as fast as he can get it to go. However, rounding third, Thielman collapses. O’Toole is right on his tail and figures the only way they’re both going to score and win the game is if he basically carries Thielman across the plate.

And that’s basically what he does, pushing Thielman on to home in front of himself.

Wilmar has won!

But at what cost?

As it turns out, Thielman had had a heart attack at third base! He scored the tying run, but he was DEAD at the time!

It’s a great story, but it’s also pretty much hogwash.

There are no local newspaper accounts of the game from 1903, and the local papers DID cover local baseball games at the time. In a centennial history of Kandiyohi County (where both cities were), local historian Lefty Ranweller categorically denies the story, and really, with all that against it, I don’t know if we even need to go to the fact that…

A. It doesn’t sound believable

and

B. As mentioned before, the same exact story was told in the 1910s, only this time involving two CANADIAN baseball teams!

So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this story is not true.

But it’s a great story!

It gives me an amusing visual…

Well, I didn’t say that YOU would find it amusing!

BASEBALL LEGEND: A New York man won over two million dollars betting the uniform numbers of his six favorite players.

STATUS: True

In 1987, 59-year-old Robert Heuer of Flushing, New York played the New York Lottery.

His six numbers were the uniform numbers of his six favorite players/managers, Joe Dimaggio (#5), Whitey Ford (#16), Willie Mays (#24), Juan Marichal (#27), Casey Stengel (#37) and Willie McCovey (#44) - three Yankees and three Giants.

The result?

Heuer won $2,250,000 in the lottery!!!

Who says die hard fandom doesn’t pay off?

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com

Tags: Boy Scouts of America, Casey Stengel, Dr. Samuel Crumbine, flyswatter, Frank H. Rose, Joe Dimaggio, Juan Marichal, Kandiyohi County, Kansas Board of Health, Lefty Ranweller, New York Giants, New York Lottery, New York Yankees, Robert Heuer, San Francisco Giants, Whitey Ford, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey