1972 World Series Game 4 @ baseball-reference.com
In 7 of 35 simulated timelines, the losing team outhit the winning team.
Cincinnati was the losing team in all 7.
Oakland figured out how to win without hitting. Cincinnati could not figure out how to win while hitting.
What follows is the complete list, arranged in ascending order of absurdity.
CIN: 6 hits, 1 run. OAK: 5 hits, 2 runs.
The gentlest version of the joke. Cincinnati had one more hit than Oakland. One. A rounding error. A coin flip. And Cincinnati still lost by one run.
Cincinnati committed 1 error. Oakland committed 1 error. The errors cancelled out. The hits didn't.
CIN: 7 hits, 3 runs. OAK: 6 hits, 4 runs.
Same joke, but stretched over twelve innings. Cincinnati outhit Oakland by one and lost by one. This time it took extra innings for the punchline to land.
Cincinnati committed 2 errors. Oakland committed none. Two errors in twelve innings - that is where the extra run came from. Cincinnati hit more but fielded worse, and in a one-run game, the fielding decided it.
This is the game from the Walk-Off Hero page, where Angel Mangual went 0-for-5 while Joe Rudi went 2-for-5 with a home run. The hits were there. The runs were not.
CIN: 10 hits, 3 runs. OAK: 9 hits, 4 runs.
This is the game from the Curse of Don Gullett page. Gullett pitched 8 innings of 1-earned-run ball. His ERA for the game: 1.12. Holtzman threw a complete game with an ERA of 3.00. The worse pitcher won.
Cincinnati had 10 hits. Oakland had 9. Cincinnati committed 1 error. Oakland committed none. The same pattern: more hits, more errors, fewer runs.
Cincinnati scored 2 runs in the 9th inning - too late. Gullett was already gone. His offense slept for eight innings, then woke up just in time to watch the game end.
CIN: 13 hits, 3 runs. OAK: 11 hits, 4 runs.
This game appears on the Ten Hits and Nothing page. Thirteen hits - the most by any team in any regulation game across 35 timelines - and 3 runs. Cincinnati scored all 3 in the first three innings and then went silent. Seven consecutive scoreless innings while the bats kept producing hits that produced nothing.
Bobby Tolan went 3-for-5. Johnny Bench went 3-for-4. Even Pete Rose went 2-for-4. The lineup was hitting. The lineup was producing. The scoreboard was not moving.
Meanwhile, Ken Holtzman threw a complete game, gave up 13 hits, and won. He allowed more hits than any Oakland pitcher in any regulation game in the multiverse. And he won.
CIN: 8 hits, 4 runs. OAK: 5 hits, 5 runs.
Now the gap is widening. Cincinnati had 8 hits to Oakland's 5. Three more hits. Cincinnati scored 4 runs. Oakland scored 5.
The difference: Cincinnati committed 3 errors. Three. In a one-run game against a team with 5 hits, Cincinnati's defense manufactured the runs that Oakland's bats could not.
This is the game from the Curse of Don Gullett page where he struck out 8 in 8 innings with a 1.12 ERA and got the loss. Gullett did not deserve this. Cincinnati's defense ensured he got it anyway.
Oakland scored 5 runs on 5 hits and 3 Cincinnati errors. That is not an offense. That is a charity.
CIN: 10 hits, 1 run. OAK: 5 hits, 2 runs.
Cincinnati doubled Oakland's hit total. Ten to five. And lost.
Seven different Cincinnati batters recorded hits. Bobby Tolan went 3-for-4. The Big Red Machine was doing what a machine is supposed to do - producing hits, moving the assembly line, generating output. But the output was empty. Ten hits, and only 1 run crossed the plate.
Cincinnati committed 1 error. Oakland committed none. One error was enough.
Denis Menke went 1-for-4 with a double play. That double play appears on the Double Play King page. In a game decided by one run, where Cincinnati had 10 hits and scored 1 run, Menke killed an inning.
This is a game about abundance that means nothing. Cincinnati had twice as many hits as Oakland. They had ten opportunities to do damage. They converted one of them.
CIN: 10 hits, 2 runs. OAK: 0 hits, 3 runs.
This is the one.
Oakland had zero hits. Zero. Not one. Not a bloop single, not a broken-bat grounder, not an infield hit that barely reached the dirt. Zero.
Cincinnati had 10 hits and lost.
Cincinnati's pitching staff threw a combined no-hitter - Gullett for 5 innings, Tom Hall for 1, Ed Sprague for 2 - and they lost 3-2. Oakland scored 3 runs on walks and errors alone. Gullett walked 7 batters. Cincinnati committed 3 errors. Three of those walked batters scored on three different defensive miscues.
Holtzman gave up 10 hits and his ERA for the game was 0.00 - both of Cincinnati's runs were unearned. So neither starting pitcher allowed an earned run. In a game where one team got 10 hits and the other got zero, the team with zero hits won, and neither pitcher technically allowed a legitimate run.
The hit differential in this game: +10 for Cincinnati. The run differential: -1.
In what universe does a team with 10 hits lose to a team with 0 hits?
This one.
Seven games. Seven Cincinnati losses. Seven times the Big Red Machine outhit Oakland and lost anyway.
The hit differentials, in order: +1, +1, +1, +2, +3, +5, +10.
Read that list again. It is a staircase, and the multiverse is walking up it. Each step is a little higher than the last. Each game is a little more absurd. The joke gets funnier every time it's told, because the audience - Cincinnati - keeps sitting through it.
The punchline is Timeline 31: ten hits to zero, and a loss. The multiverse told Cincinnati the same joke seven different times, and each time it made the joke crueler, until it delivered the final version - you can have every hit and still have nothing.
In the real Game 4, hits mattered. Angel Mangual singled, Blue Moon Odom scored, Oakland won. One hit, one run, one game.
In the multiverse, hits are a suggestion. Runs are a decision. And the multiverse decided, seven times out of seven, that Cincinnati's hits did not count.