Pitch'Em & Bat'Em

Pitch, a rare and early baseball-themed electromechanical (EM) pinball machine, was produced by the Scientific Machine Corporation of Brooklyn, New York, and introduced to the trade in January 1948. Unlike typical pinball machines, Pitch is a "bat game" played vertically rather than horizontally: the bat is angled to give the ball elevation, a design that sets it apart from other pitch-and-bat machines of the era.

Each player receives 15 pitches, aiming to score as many runs as possible by hitting balls in the air and over the fence. The game can be played in one- or two-player mode: in one-player mode the machine pitches automatically, while in two-player mode one player selects from fastball, curveball, or knuckleball pitches while the other bats. The bat lever is entirely mechanical, so there is no lag between pressing the handle and the bat swinging, unlike electromechanical bat designs that require a coil to fire after a switch is triggered - the speed of the swing depends purely on how fast and hard the player pulls the lever. An instruction decal on the playfield glass helped guide players through the rules.

Pitch's design reflects its 1940s origins and baseball theme, and the company's move to a new Brooklyn factory building (built in 1939) was noted in trade press at the time. The lack of detailed information about the game's specific art make it an intriguing machine among collectors and historians interested in the earlier, more mechanical side of pinball's baseball-themed lineage.