(no subject)

I recently browsed Farmer's Almanac (not surprised the old-fashioned thing is approaching its bicentennial) and, in testament to my lingering youthfulness, took most interest in the game section. One of the easiest puzzles also struck me as the most curious. Let me paraphrase in brief:

Some kid broke a neighbor's window during baseball. Each questioned player told one truth and one lie. Who did it?

Four of the five pairs of statements that follow take the form of "It wasn't X. It was Y." The last one goes, "It was X. It was Y." You don't need much logic to notice that all the "wasn't" statements have to be true. From there, you can rule out one of the last two statements, completely ignoring three testimonies.

I don't blame FA for varying the difficulties from elementary level to, well, frustrating for me. But this setup raises several questions that must not have crossed the writer's mind. Why would all the players make various false accusations? How would anyone determine that they alternated between truths and lies except by already knowing which was which? Why would they bother with the denials, which are implied by the accusations? And why accuse two people back to back for what's decidedly the work of just one of them?

You can call me picky, but hey, this is a logic puzzle. Logical thinking doesn't stop with the rules. ;)