Magic Baseball

Magic Baseball, manufactured by The Shelden, Dickson & Steven Mfg. Co. of Omaha, Nebraska in October 1966, is not a pinball machine but a baseball-themed arcade game. It was listed among the 'Equipment Introduced During 1966' by The Billboard, and by mid-1967 Cash Box reported it was 'still selling like hotcakes' for a Los Angeles distributor, including export orders to the Far East.

The game's central mechanism is a plastic baseball suspended by a column of air, which a nearly 10-inch-tall mechanical batter attempts to knock over a fence in 9 swings for a dime. The operator can raise or lower the ball's height using a small button on the side of the cabinet, and the replay level for awarding extra credit is adjustable between 4 and 9 home runs. A play lasts approximately 2 minutes. The steel cabinet was advertised at 72 inches high, 24 inches wide, and 24 inches deep.

By 1969, the manufacturer was advertising Magic Baseball with 'a new, attractive red and white speckled cabinet,' suggesting a long production run. As a piece of 1960s arcade history rather than pinball, Magic Baseball remains an interesting curiosity for collectors of vintage coin-operated amusements.