Step up to the plate — 10th Inning is an electromechanical single-player built around America’s pastime, baseball, from United, one of the pioneering names of the early coin-op amusement industry whose history reaches back to the formative decades of the trade. With light-based scoring, it’s a genuine antique, a machine from the era when baseball-themed games were a beloved arcade staple and companies like United helped lay the foundation for everything that followed.
The available details on this early machine are modest, as they often are for the oldest titles, but its layout carries a distinctive baseball flavor: two flippers and a remarkable eleven kick-out holes. That extraordinary number of kick-out holes is the machine’s defining feature, evoking the bases, outfield positions, and scoring plays of a ballgame — a playfield built to translate the drama of baseball into captured-ball awards. It’s a design that rewards a player who works the field to find and feed those many holes, each one a little scoring opportunity, all in service of the beloved national-pastime theme.
10th Inning is a fascinating piece of history for the collector who cherishes the deepest roots of the hobby and the pioneering companies that built it. United was an important early manufacturer, and baseball-themed machines connect pinball to the broader story of American amusement games. Documentation on the specifics is thin, which only adds to the intrigue for those who love chasing the hobby’s forgotten corners. For anyone who reveres pinball’s earliest chapters and the timeless appeal of baseball, it’s a worthy find. Work those eleven kick-out holes, round the bases, and swing for the fences. Some machines are treasured for their history and their charm, and this baseball classic is one of them. Play ball. (Note: available data on this title is limited to basic details.)