Extra Inning

Extra Inning, designed by Ed Krynski with artwork by Gordon Morison, was released by Gottlieb in May 1971 in a confirmed run of just 350 units. This single-player, baseball-themed electro-mechanical game is a Novelty Play machine - it has no replay unit and no add-a-ball unit - and was reportedly built with New York's restrictive pinball laws in mind, in the fashion of Gottlieb's 1971 'Bristol Hills'. It followed immediately after Gottlieb's 1971 'Playball' and shares a very similar playfield, minus the pop bumpers.

The gameplay is engaging and distinctive. There are no pop bumpers at all; instead, players work two flippers, two slingshots, two vari-targets, and eight standup targets. The ball enters the playfield from between the flippers when the right flipper button is pressed - an unusual launch mechanism - and open-elbow inlanes allow the ball to pass from inlane to outlane and vice-versa, enabling some creative shot-making. Scoring tops out at 9,999 points, announced by a simple three-chime sound package.

Several details suggest a deliberate effort to downplay the game's identity as a pinball machine: its Novelty Play format, the absence of pop bumpers, an apron that avoids the word 'flipper', and a backglass that reads 'Innings' instead of 'Ball In Play'. Ed Krynski, one of Gottlieb's most prolific designers, turned those constraints into one of the era's more curious baseball games.