Baseball

Marvel Manufacturing Company's Baseball, from September 1944, is a World War II conversion game - a fascinating category born of wartime necessity. With materials restricted and new pinball production halted during the war, companies like Chicago-based Marvel gave older machines new life by rebuilding them with fresh artwork and themes. Baseball is one of these conversions, dressed in America's favorite pastime.

The gameplay is straightforward, typical of pre-flipper electro-mechanical machines: the playfield features 15 passive bumpers and a single kick-out hole, and players score by launching balls and guiding them, through nudging and luck, into scoring positions.

No designer is credited for this machine. Its significance lies less in innovation than in what it represents: the ingenuity of a coin-op industry keeping arcades and taverns supplied with entertainment during the war years, when a rethemed playfield was often the only new game in town.