Description: League Leader, Keeney, 4/58, one player, ramp style baseball game where the ball is fed down a ramp using a pitch motor driving a cloth belt. Game size is 62" deep, 26.5" wide, 78.5" tall. Basically a much bigger version of Keeney Texas Leaguer (1940) baseball machine and the 1965 Irving Kaye Batting Practice, but instead of automatic pitching the ball, player presses left flipper button to pitch the ball. The right flipper button electrically bats the ball. This is unlike the other three ramp style baseball games where the ball is pitched automatically and the bat is mechanically powered by the player (that is the player determines the bat strength by squeezing the bat trigger harder or softer.) On this game there is no way to change the bat strength because the bat is electrically moved, like a pinball flipper.

Unlike Keeney Texas Leaguer or Irving Kaye Batting Practice, the Keeney League Leader kept track of player position on the infield diamond using light animation. That is, the players actually run the bases using lights. This is more sophisticated than the 1941 Scientific Batting Practice which only shows one player base position (no running light animation.) That is on League Leader you can have multiple players on base, and scoring is like real baseball (opposed to the abreviated single base player on the Scientific Batting Practice, where hitting a "double" is more akin to just moving the one player two base positions.) Because of this, the Keeney League Leader is the most sophisticated of the four ramp games.

Unfortunately Keeney League Leader does not have playfield manikins (no matter how useless they may be on Scientific Batting Practice and Irving Kaye Batting Practice.) The playfield artwork is very cool though.

League Leader also came in novelty and replay formats (replay has a credit unit, awarding replays at operator programmed run intervals.) If the player hits the Super Homer hole (quite a feat), there are four runs scored (assuming no players on base.) Also the Pennant light (just above the Out lights) on the backglass comes on (subtle feature.) And the Super H.R. relay stays engergize along with a buzzer relay... Until someone hits the hidden Reset switch next to the power switch. The game is halted until the Reset switch is pressed... but after the button is pushed, the Super HR relay releases and the buzzer stops, allowing the current game to resume. This certainly implies a gambling aspect to the game, as the bartender is called to the game for perhaps a payout to the player, and to press the hidden Reset button. Note Keeney largely made gambling type games (like flasher slot machines), so this aspect is no surprise on a Keeney baseball game.

The pitch motor's ball belt is often problematic on this game. The belt is 46" long by 1 1/16" wide with 11 brackets, 4" apart. Brackets are 9/16" wide, prongs measured to the belt 5/8". Game uses ten 9/16" steel balls. Another downside is the two plastic backgrounds which often shrink and deteriorate. Fortunately I have created new plastic graphics in Photoshop format and printed on 1/16" PETG plastic to fix this.

Overall the Keeney League Leader is one of my favorite baseball ramp games. It employs a lot of very good features like player position and light animation. The only downside is lack of manakin playfield players (though the playfield artwork is awesome.) Also possibly a downside is the coil driven bat instead of a fully mechanical bat (though frankly the electric bat is pretty cool.) But overall, in my opinion, the Keeney League Leader is the best of the four ramp style baseball games.

If you have a Keeney League Leader baseball game for sale, please contact me at cfh@provide.net