The All-American Baseball Game

The All-American Baseball Game, manufactured by the Amusement Machine Corporation, Ltd. of Los Angeles in 1931, is an early electro-mechanical (EM) "bat game" and a close relative of the same maker's earlier 'All-American Automatic Base Ball Game' from 1929. A period Automatic Age article described its automatic pitcher as throwing the ball at timed intervals with varying direction, with "all action automatic except the release of the bat," meaning the player's only job is swinging.

For 5 cents, the player receives three outs' worth of pitches before the game ends, rather than continuing indefinitely, a simple, arcade-style format typical of bat games from this period. A metal plaque found on one surviving example (serial number 1055) identifies the game as Model "H", distributed solely by the Amusement Machine Company of Chicago.

Specific details about the cabinet's artwork have not been documented in the available records. Still, as one of a small number of documented baseball-themed coin-op games from the early 1930s, it's a notable entry in the pre-pinball history of American amusement machines.