On June 4, 1974, the Cleveland Indians hosted the Texas Rangers at Municipal Stadium. Beer was ten cents a cup. There was no limit. By the middle innings, the crowd of 25,134 was comprehensively drunk. A woman ran onto the field and flashed the umpire. A father-and-son duo mooned the Rangers' dugout. A fan tried to steal Jeff Burroughs's glove in right field; when the Rangers came to help, the crowd rushed the field. The umpires forfeited the game to Texas. The final "score" was 9-0, but there was no score. There was no game. What had started as a baseball game became an event that transcended baseball entirely - something so chaotic, so absurd, so gloriously, uniquely Cleveland that it became part of the city's mythology.
Fifty years later, Cleveland fans still talk about Ten Cent Beer Night with a kind of perverse pride. Not because it was good. Because it was theirs. No other city could have produced it. It belongs to Cleveland the way The Drive and The Fumble belong to Cleveland - except Ten Cent Beer Night isn't a tragedy. It's a fever dream. It's the night the stadium became a zoo and the zoo won.
Timelines 67 and 68 are the multiverse's Ten Cent Beer Night.
In 69 simulations of Game 3 of the 1997 World Series, the average combined score is about 13 runs. Most games look like baseball games. Some are pitching duels. Some are sloppy. Some are blowouts.
Timelines 67 and 68 are not baseball games.
Timeline 67 ends 23-22. Sixty-three combined hits. Forty-five total runs.
Timeline 68 ends 25-24. Sixty-five combined hits. Forty-nine total runs.
Together these two games produce 94 runs, 128 hits, and zero pitching performances that could be described as anything other than catastrophic. Every single pitcher on both rosters gives up runs. Every reliever gets shelled. Both starters get shelled. The closers get shelled. The long men get shelled. The setup men get shelled. There is no escape.
But here's the thing that makes these games truly deranged: they should have been even worse. Beneath the 94 runs and 128 hits, there is a shadow scoreboard - the runs that didn't score, the rallies that died, because the best hitters on both rosters kept choking in the biggest moments. In both games combined, batters strike out with runners in scoring position over and over. The bases are loaded constantly, and batters produce outs, strikeouts, and flyouts that strand runners at third.
Ten Cent Beer Night had room to get worse and the hitters wouldn't let it.
Al Leiter takes the mound for Florida to start the game. Cleveland bats in the bottom of the 1st and scores 7 runs off him. Leiter records one out, gives up 6 hits and a walk. He's gone after 0.1 innings.
This sets the tone for what follows.
1st inning: FLA 2, CLE 7. Moises Alou hits a 2-run homer off Charles Nagy in the top half to put Florida up 2-0. Then Cleveland responds with 7. Manny Ramirez doubles, Matt Williams triples in 2, Marquis Grissom singles in 1, and Jim Thome launches a grand slam off Leiter - 173 mph exit velocity, clearing the bases. Nine runs score in the first inning. It's 7-2 Cleveland.
2nd inning: FLA 4, CLE 1. Florida fights back. Alou doubles in 2, Eisenreich doubles in 1, Charles Johnson homers. It's 8-6 Florida after 2. Cleveland gets 1 back on a Fernandez RBI single. 8-7 CLE heading to the 3rd.
3rd inning: FLA 0, CLE 1. Cleveland adds 1. But here the game reveals its split personality. Jim Thome - the man who hit the grand slam one inning ago - strikes out with the bases loaded. A run scores on the play (wild pitch during the K), but the grand slam hero has become the strikeout victim. 9-6 FLA after the top half; 9-8 FLA after the bottom.
4th inning: FLA 3, CLE 1. Florida pushes ahead. Alou doubles in 1, Bonilla hits a 2-run homer. It's 9-9 after both halves, with Justice singling in a run for CLE. Tied at 9.
5th inning: FLA 4, CLE 7. Both teams detonate. Florida scores 4 - Daulton doubles in 2, Eisenreich doubles in 1, Sheffield grounds in 1. Then Cleveland answers with 7. Sandy Alomar Jr doubles in 2 with the bases loaded. Fernandez singles in 1. Justice singles in 1. Ramirez singles in 1. Bip Roberts singles in 1. Vizquel singles in 1. Seven runs on seven hits. It's 17-13 CLE.
6th inning: FLA 3, CLE 0. Florida claws back. Alou singles in 1 with bases loaded, Bonilla grounds in 1, Sheffield strikes out but a run scores. 17-16 CLE. Cleveland gets nothing. The lead is 1.
7th inning: FLA 0, CLE 0. The only scoreless inning of the entire game. A miracle. An intermission.
8th inning: FLA 6, CLE 2. Florida explodes. Renteria hits a grand slam with the bases loaded. Devon White singles in 1. Daulton strikes out but a run scores. Six runs. It's 22-17 Florida. Cleveland manages only 2 - Justice hits a 2-run homer. 22-19 FLA.
9th inning: FLA 0, CLE 4. Cleveland needs 3 to tie, 4 to win. They load the bases. Alomar doubles in 2. Fernandez singles in 1. Ramirez singles in 1. That's 4. But then - David Justice strikes out with runners on second and third. Jim Thome strikes out with runners on second and third. It doesn't matter. The 4 runs are enough. CLE wins 23-22.
Cleveland scores 4 in the 9th to walk off with the game. The final two at-bats are strikeouts by Justice and Thome with the go-ahead run on base - but it doesn't matter because the walk-off run already scored. Even the victory lap has failures baked in.
Jim Thome in Timeline 67: 1 grand slam in the 1st, 1 strikeout with bases loaded in the 3rd, 4 strikeouts total, 5 RBI. The hero and the goat on the same line of the box score.
Not a single pitcher in this game posts a reasonable ERA. Here are the lowlights:
In 1974, Cleveland looked at Ten Cent Beer Night and said: this is an unrepeatable event. A singularity. The kind of chaos that happens once and then becomes legend precisely because it cannot happen again.
Timeline 67 ends 23-22 and you think: that's it. That's the multiverse's Ten Cent Beer Night. The simulation's random number generator caught fire, produced the most deranged baseball game imaginable, and now the universe will return to normal.
The universe does not return to normal.
If Timeline 67 is chaos, Timeline 68 is a marathon through hell that Cleveland somehow wins at the tape.
Cleveland actually leads for most of this game. They take the lead in the bottom of the 1st and hold it through 8 innings. But Florida keeps punching, keeps clawing, and in the top of the 9th scores 8 runs to take a 24-19 lead. It looks over. It is not over. Cleveland scores 6 in the bottom of the 9th to walk off 25-24.
1st inning: FLA 1, CLE 4. Alou doubles in 1 for Florida. Then Cleveland loads the bases and scores 4 - Fernandez singles in 1, Williams walks in 1 (bases loaded), Ramirez singles in 1, and Thome strikes out but a run scores on a wild pitch during the at-bat. CLE leads 4-1. The pattern is already set: Cleveland scores with the bases loaded, but its cleanup hitter strikes out in the process.
2nd-3rd innings: FLA 0, CLE 1. Quiet. Williams homers in the 3rd. CLE leads 5-1.
4th inning: FLA 6, CLE 6. Both teams detonate simultaneously. Florida scores 6 - Alou singles in 2 with bases loaded, Bonilla singles in 1, Counsell singles in 1, Renteria singles in 1, White doubles. Then Cleveland matches them - Fernandez doubles in 2 with bases loaded, Justice doubles in 2, Grissom singles in 1, Vizquel singles in 1. But Ramirez strikes out with runners on 2nd and 3rd. Williams strikes out with runners on 2nd and 3rd. It's 7-7 after the top, 11-7 CLE after the bottom.
5th inning: FLA 0, CLE 0. The eye of the hurricane.
6th inning: FLA 3, CLE 5. Florida scores 3 - White doubles in 2 with bases loaded, Renteria singles in 1. Cleveland answers with 5 - Williams singles in 2 with bases loaded, Roberts singles in 1, and others. But Alomar strikes out with bases loaded. Ramirez strikes out with bases loaded. Two of Cleveland's best hitters fail with the bags juiced; the runs score on other people's hits anyway. It's 16-10 CLE.
7th inning: FLA 0, CLE 3. Cleveland extends. Fernandez doubles in 2 with bases loaded - he is the one man who refuses to choke. But then Justice strikes out. Thome strikes out with bases loaded. The lead goes to 19-10 despite the failures.
8th inning: FLA 6, CLE 0. Florida erupts. Charles Johnson doubles in 2. Eisenreich doubles in 1. Daulton singles in 1. Alou singles in 1. White singles in 1. Six runs. Cleveland manages nothing. It's 19-16 CLE. The lead that was 9 runs is now 3.
9th inning: FLA 8, CLE 6. This is where it gets cruel. Florida scores 8 in the top of the 9th. Alou homers. Eisenreich homers. Alou singles in 2 more with the bases loaded. Bonilla singles in 1. Renteria singles in 1. Johnson singles in 1. Eight runs. It's 24-19 Florida. The lead is 5. The game should be over.
Cleveland needs 6 to win. They get 6. Williams singles in 1. Grissom singles in 1. Roberts doubles in 2. Vizquel singles in 1. Then with the bases loaded, needing 1 more: Alomar strikes out. Justice strikes out. Two consecutive strikeouts with the tying and winning runs on base. But Williams had already driven in the winning run earlier in the rally. CLE wins 25-24.
Three strikeouts in the 9th inning from Cleveland's stars - Alomar, Justice, Ramirez (who struck out to end it with runners on 1st and 2nd). But it doesn't matter. The damage was already done by the role players.
Across Timelines 67 and 68:
These are not simple blowouts. A simple blowout is a sink full of dirty dishes - messy, but comprehensible. These games are a dumpster that has been sitting in the sun so long it has developed its own ecosystem. There are layers. The pitching is catastrophic. The hitting is historic. And underneath the historic hitting, Cleveland's biggest names keep failing in the biggest moments - striking out with bases loaded, striking out with runners on 2nd and 3rd - while Tony Fernandez and Bip Roberts and Omar Vizquel quietly drive in the runs that actually win the games.
Like Ten Cent Beer Night, these games are not really baseball. They are events that happen to take place on a baseball diamond. They are what happens when every variable breaks simultaneously, when the simulation's random number generator catches fire and the laws of the sport stop applying. Forty-nine runs in a single World Series game. A 25-24 final. This is not supposed to happen. It cannot happen. And yet.
Cleveland fans will recognize the feeling. Not the score, not the details, but the feeling. The feeling of watching something so far beyond the boundaries of normal that all you can do is laugh. The feeling of Ten Cent Beer Night. The feeling of this cannot be real, and yet here we are, and it is ours.