flipperless Major League (PAMCO 1934)

It's October 1934. The St. Louis Cardinals have beaten the Detroit Tigers for their 3rd World Series trophy. Satchel Paige's pitching is beginning to get attention from the white media outlets. Babe Ruth is the reigning Home Run King at 708 - just 6 shy of his ultimate total of 714. Hank Aaron, who will break Ruth's record 30 years from now, is currently 8 months old. Baseball is undeniably America's Pastime. And the folks over at Pacific Amusement Manufacturing Co. (PAMCO) capitalize on this with their "Major League" pinball table.

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Once again, I was inspired to recreate a table after seeing it on YouTube. While most of the playfield is fairly straight forward, I was amazed at the base running marbles in the center. I realized pretty quickly I had to give it a go. I've obviously never played the real thing, but I think the end result looks like the photos I've seen. This might also be the most fun flipperless table I've made yet. I also made a fantasy backglass for the table. I didn't feel using the post-it note high score on this one, so I stuck a high score reel and there's a running tally of your points and runs on the backglass. And I *think* you should be able to turn off the backglass in the script, if you prefer not using it. There's also one or two other settings you can adjust in the "Configuration" section of the script.

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A quick rundown of the rules:
You MUST hit "Batter Up" to bring a marble up to home plate. If you get a ball in the home run spot and nobody's on any of the bases, then all you've done is waste a ball. And before anyone digs up that flyer on IPDB that reads "A batter automatically up every time" - I'm 99% sure that just means  PAMCO managed to fix a mistake that occasionally prevented the marble from going to home plate after you hit the "Batter Up" hole. Oh, and if you hit "Batter Up" when there's already a ball at home plate, it's just going to drain back out and be another wasted ball.

Otherwise, things are pretty straight forward for people who know basic baseball terms. A home run clears the bases. A triple advances everyone three bases. A double moves everyone two bases. A single moves everyone forward a base, while a steal or sacrifice hit moves everyone but the guy at home one base.

Oh, and for scoring, in addition to the labeled values, you get points for players remaining on base at the end.
First Base: 200 points
Second Base: 500 points
Third Base: 1,000 points

~~~If anyone owns or has access to a fully working table and knows that my recreation didn't get something in the rules correct, please get in touch. I'm doing all of this based off of the limited gameplay footage I found on YouTube and some basic assumptions from how baseball operates.~~~

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Included in this download: The VPX file, my custom B2S backglass, and 2 wheels (one tarcisio style, one not).

Ok, enough introduction. Play ball!!