Batting Champ

Batting Champ, released by D. Gottlieb & Company in July 1939, is a single-player electro-mechanical game built around America's favorite pastime, baseball. It was designed by Harry Mabs with artwork by Roy Parker, two of Gottlieb's most important early creative talents; Mabs would go on to invent the flipper for Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty in 1947, so Batting Champ represents his pre-flipper era of design.

The playfield is populated with fourteen passive bumpers, the springy, non-powered scoring posts typical of the period, along with a free-ball gobble hole that swallows the ball and rewards the player with another one to shoot. The game was available in Novelty or Free Play versions, reflecting the different operating rules of various 1930s jurisdictions.

With its simple layout and charming Roy Parker baseball illustrations, Batting Champ is a fine example of late-1930s Gottlieb design and an appealing artifact from the years just before the flipper transformed the game.