Soc-A-Ball

The Soc-A-Ball, manufactured by Champion Manufacturing Company of Beverly, Massachusetts, is a baseball-themed electro-mechanical single-player pinball game. Unlike some baseball pinballs of the period, it is not a bat game; play instead centers on the game ending after three outs, a straightforward but tension-building twist on the standard scoring format.

Little documentation of Soc-A-Ball survives. The only trade references found are a distributor's ad listing used games in a 1947 issue of Cash Box, and an undated manufacturer announcement pricing the game at $399.50 retail ($325.00 to distributors, FOB Lynn, Massachusetts).

With so little known about its design, art, or exact release date, Soc-A-Ball remains an obscure entry from a lesser-known manufacturer. Its scarcity in the historical record makes any surviving example of particular interest to collectors and historians researching early sports-themed pinball.