Quarterback

The Quarterback, manufactured by the Genco Manufacturing Company of Chicago in September 1955 (some sources list 1957, but period Billboard ads confirm 1955), is a single-player electro-mechanical football-themed 'bat game' rather than a conventional pinball machine.

Its gameplay is distinctive: ping-pong-style balls are automatically delivered to a tee positioned in front of a miniature football kicker figure. The tee bobs and weaves in front of the player, who presses a button on the outside of the cabinet to 'kick' the ball through the air at a target backdrop, testing timing rather than flipper skill.

Little further information survives about Quarterback's designer or specific scoring rules, but as an early sports-themed coin-op with an unusual physical mechanism, it offers a distinctive look at the variety of amusement games Genco produced during the mid-1950s.