Description: Batting Practice, Irving Kaye, 7/65, based on the 1941 Scientific Batting Practice. This is a single player ramp style baseball game that had cast manikin playfield players. The balls pitched were plastic and pitched automatically, for a total of 15 balls. There's four decks at the back of the playfield for scoring. Like the 1940 Texas Leaguer, a deck represented 1,2,3 or 4 runs.

Unfortunately unlike the 1941 Scientific Batting Practice and the 1958 Keeney League Leader, the Irving Kaye Batting Practice does not score player positions on the infield diamond. Instead the player gets 1,2,3 or 4 runs depending on the deck hit by the ball (higher decks yield more runs.) The runs scored and balls pitched are tracked by Bally score reels in the backglass.

The playfield men are frankly, more like green army men than baseball players. They serve no purpose other than decoration. It's too bad they are not painted like the players on the 1941 Scientific Batting Practice. They are flexible, and the green plastic has white swirls from the injection molding.

The batting mech for this game is purely mechanical. Meaning the harder the player squeezed the trigger, the harder the bat/ball were hit. The front legs are dinette style round legs.

Operator adjustable game from 15 or 20 or 25 balls pitched. Extra balls can be earned for a good score (or replay, operator selectable.) The balls are solid plastic and .965" (24.5mm) diameter and 10 grams weight. The weight is important or the will not play correct. Game plays with a minimum of five balls, but probably came with ten balls when new. The chain that delivers the balls to the top ramp can have three or four lift gates. The more lift gates, the faster the game plays. My game had both chains. But what I did was to split apart the three lifter chain and cut it, adding three more lifters, spaced evenly between the original three lifters. This made my chain have six lifters. Frankly the game is just too slow with a three or four lifter chain. The six lifter chain made the game play much better, with far less time wondering, "when will it pitch a ball??"

The lift motor is marked UMC at 50volts and about 27rpm. I would have thought the motor would be a Molen motor (Bally's motor company), but on my game it's UMC. The gears inside the gearbox are nylon. On my bearbox the last gear slipped on it's shaft, and would not lift the balls. Had to insert a small stainless steel pin in the gear/shaft to prevent gear slippage.

Although marketed by Irving Kaye, the Batting Practice games were built by Bally using Bally parts at the Belmont Avenue Bally plant. In fact the score reels, coin door, score motor, and stepper units were all Bally parts. Mr. Irving Kaye himself was vice president of the Board of Directors for Bally Manufacturing Corporation, since he was one of the main investors of Bally in 1963 (about the time Bally introduced hopper style slot machines.)

If you have this game for sale please contact me at cfh@provide.net