De Luxe World Series

The De Luxe World Series, manufactured by Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company in 1974, is a two-player electro-mechanical bat game carrying on the long tradition of baseball-themed coin-op amusements. Rather than flippers, the player wields a bat, swinging at pitched balls in pursuit of hits and home runs.

The machine offers seven hanging targets and four ramps as its principal scoring features; the ramps are small, made of plastic, and reinforced with metal underneath. The soundscape is classic electro-mechanical: a single bell, a chime, and a knocker punctuate the action. The sports theme is rendered with simple, recognizable baseball imagery that gives the game a nostalgic charm.

A quirk of this title is its naming: the backglass displays 'De Luxe World Series', yet the game is also known simply as 'World Series' because the parts manual inexplicably shows the shorter name on its cover (even while depicting the 'De Luxe' backglass inside), and the schematic likewise uses only the shorter name. For collectors of bat games and Chicago Coin's 1970s output, it remains an appealing addition to any game room.