Major League (Model 44)

The Major League (Model 44), manufactured by the Pacific Amusement Manufacturing Company (PAMCO) in October 1934, is a significant early example of electro-mechanical, single-player, baseball-themed pinball, designed by Bon MacDougall and C. Hale. As a pre-flipper coin-operated game, it predates the solid-state and flipper-based machines that would come to define pinball decades later.

Gameplay involves a coin-operated mechanism -- the patents covering this game were filed under the title "Coin Controlled Game Apparatus" -- with players aiming to land the ball in various playfield holes for points, all set against a baseball-themed playfield. Model 44 was advertised at 44 inches by 22 inches and is distinguished from its shorter sibling, the Model 40, by an upper playfield with two vertically arranged holes and a shallower chevron of five holes below them, with an elevated pair of bats over the Batter Up hole.

The nameplate on the lower playfield apron of Model 44 does not display a model number. As with the Model 40, MacDougall's original patent application was split by the Patent Office into three separate filings, granted between September 1934 and March 1936, underscoring the novelty the Patent Office saw in the design at the time.