1972 World Series Game 4 @ baseball-reference.com
Thirty-five simulated games. Nine went to extra innings. Cincinnati won eight of them.
Twenty-six games ended in regulation. Cincinnati won eight of those too.
The same number. Eight and eight. But there were only nine extra-inning games and there were twenty-six regulation games. In extras, Cincinnati won 89% of the time. In regulation, they won 31% of the time.
Oakland dominated the sprints. Cincinnati dominated the marathons. But there were not enough marathons to save them.
Three games reached 15 innings - the deepest any timeline went. Cincinnati won all three.
The first used the 1972 strategy engine. The second used the 1942 strategy engine. The third used the 2017 strategy engine. Three different simulated decades of baseball philosophy. Three different approaches to when you bunt, when you steal, when you pull your starter, when you pinch-hit. Seventy-five years of strategic evolution.
Same result. Every time. Cincinnati wins in the 15th.
The line score:
CIN: 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 - 2
OAK: 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 1
Cincinnati scored in the 3rd. Oakland answered in the 6th. Then nothing. Nine consecutive scoreless innings. Eighteen half-innings of baseball in which nobody scored. The bullpens held. The lineups cycled through. The clock moved and the score did not.
And then, in the top of the 15th, Cincinnati scored. And Oakland could not answer.
CIN trailed 2-3 after 7 innings. They tied it in the 8th with a single run. Then nothing. The 9th was scoreless. The 10th. The 11th. The 12th. The 13th. The 14th. Six extra innings of silence. Twelve half-innings of nothing.
And then, in the top of the 15th, Cincinnati scored. And Oakland could not answer.
Oakland led 1-0 after the 1st, 2-0 after the 3rd, 3-0 after the 4th. Cincinnati clawed back: 2 runs in the 6th, 1 in the 7th to tie it at 3. Then nothing. The 8th was scoreless. The 9th. The 10th. The 11th. The 12th. The 13th. The 14th. Seven extra innings of silence. Fourteen half-innings of nothing.
And then, in the top of the 15th, Cincinnati scored. And Oakland could not answer.
Three games. Three decades. Three strategy engines. The same ending. As if the 15th inning is a door that only opens for Cincinnati. Oakland can win in 9. Oakland can win in 12. But Oakland cannot win in 15.
Fourteen innings. One run. One to nothing.
Don Gullett and Ken Holtzman both pitched 7 shutout innings. They were replaced by their bullpens. The bullpens pitched 7 more shutout innings. For 13 innings - 26 consecutive half-innings - nobody scored. Not a single run. The game existed in a state of suspended animation, a World Series game frozen at 0-0 while the innings piled up.
And then, in the top of the 14th, Cincinnati scored a run.
One run. The only run. The loneliest run in 35 timelines.
Oakland came to bat in the bottom of the 14th and could not answer, and the game was over. Twenty-six half-innings of silence, then one run, then silence again.
This is the quietest game in the multiverse. Nothing happened for almost five hours, and then one thing happened, and then it was over.
For six and a half innings, nothing happened.
Twelve consecutive half-innings of scoreless baseball. Gullett and Holtzman locked in a pitchers' duel. No runs. No drama. Just baseball played at its most deliberately quiet.
Then Oakland scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 7th.
Six. In one inning. After twelve half-innings of nothing, Oakland erupted for 6 runs. The score was 0-6. Cincinnati had 9 outs left. In a one-run-game multiverse, a 6-run deficit is an extinction-level event. This was, mathematically, the most hopeless situation any team faced in 35 timelines.
Top of the 8th: Cincinnati scored 4. CIN 4, OAK 6.
Top of the 9th: Cincinnati scored 2. CIN 6, OAK 6. Tied.
Top of the 10th: Cincinnati scored 1. CIN 7, OAK 6.
Bottom of the 10th: Oakland scored 0. Final.
Down 6 with 9 outs left. Four runs. Then two runs. Then one run. The comeback arrived in declining increments, like a heartbeat slowing down - 4, 2, 1 - and each time it was exactly enough.
This happened under the 1912 strategy engine. Managers from 1912 would not have played for a comeback from a 6-run deficit. They would not have bunted, would not have stolen, would not have tried to manufacture runs one at a time. And yet the game unfolded as if someone was orchestrating it - as if the multiverse wanted to see if Cincinnati could come back from the dead, and Cincinnati said yes.
The five best-of-7 series results:
1972 strategy engine: Oakland 4, Cincinnati 3.
1942 strategy engine: Oakland 4, Cincinnati 3.
1912 strategy engine: Oakland 4, Cincinnati 3.
1997 strategy engine: Oakland 4, Cincinnati 3.
2017 strategy engine: Cincinnati 4, Oakland 3.
Four identical Oakland victories. One Cincinnati victory. The score was 4-3 every single time. The same margin. The same relentless one-game edge. Oakland won the first four series with the exact same record, as if the outcome had been decided before the games were played.
The only series Cincinnati won used the 2017 strategy engine - the most modern approach, 45 years removed from the actual 1972 World Series. The only way the Big Red Machine could win was to travel nearly half a century into the future and borrow someone else's playbook.
And here is the split that explains everything:
In extra-inning games: Cincinnati 8, Oakland 1.
In regulation games: Cincinnati 8, Oakland 18.
When the game ended in 9 innings, Oakland won 69% of the time. When the game went past 9, Cincinnati won 89% of the time. Oakland was a frontrunner. Cincinnati was a closer. Oakland won the quick, clean fights. Cincinnati won the ugly, grinding wars of attrition.
But there were 26 regulation games and only 9 extra-inning games. The Big Red Machine needed more time - more innings, more at-bats, more chances to grind the opposition down. And the multiverse simply did not give them enough of it.
Oakland won 19 games. Cincinnati won 16. The margin of the multiverse was 3 games. Three games out of 35. A few more extra-inning games, a few more 15th innings, and the entire story changes. But the story is the story. The multiverse is what it is.
Oakland wins the battles. Cincinnati wins the wars. And there were not enough wars.