Electronic Baseball : Entex

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Entex - Electronic Baseball

Game: Electronic Baseball
Company: Entex
Model No.: 8001
Year: 1979
Power: 3 AA Batteries or AC Adapter

The Entex Electronic Baseball game started it all for me. As a young baseball fan, I played Little League, collected baseball cards, engaged in an epic backyard Wiffle Ball league (where we actually kept stats) and hustled home after school to catch my favorite Cubs players like Bill Buckner and Dave Kingman on WGN.

In the Chicago winter, however, there was no baseball. At least not until Santa Claus deposited this beauty under the tree. Seriously, how sexy is this game? It's a stadium that can be held in your hand! No TV set is needed to play!

Either playing alone or with my brother or friend or cousin, this game and its emerald green playing field brought baseball to the dark days of winter. This game even had a separate controller that allowed the pitcher to choose from 5 pitches, including a knuckler. It was played in the dark, well after I should have been sleeping. It was played on car rides, with incessant bleeps and bloops driving my parents to the point of threatening to throw it out the window.

It also caused an argument or two about who was winning because, for all of its astonishing technology, it did not keep track of total scores, only the number of runs in a given half-inning. But boy it feel awesome to hit a home run and make the game lights go crazy.

Box front full

Front of box - notice the generic batter about to lunge at a pitch way too far outside.

Back of box - great view of the Remote Control Pitching Module

Game front

Instructions booklet

Score sheet - at first we filled out dream lineups but eventually just kept score, while these sheets lasted

Entex - Electro Baseball

Game: Electro Baseball
Company: Entex
Model No.: 906100
Year: 1979
Power: 2 AA Batteries

Notes: This is Canadian version of the Entex Hip Pocket game. At this point, it appears the Canadian version was only produced in black.

The playing surface is completely different on this game, with digital-looking characters replacing the English words on the U.S. issued version and depicted on the box.

Box front

Box back

Game front - notice differences in playing field

Entex - Hip Pocket Baseball

Game: Hip Pocket Baseball
Company: Entex
Model: 6100
Year: 1979
Power: 2 AA batteries

Notes: This is a electro-mechanical game that was sold in either black or white versions. The lever at the top of the game gave the pitcher an option to throw a ball or strike only. Similar to the standard Entex Baseball issues, a hit ball will make the LEDs light up randomly. Here, the pitcher hits the "F" (field) button to make the lights stop and to determine the outcome of the play.

Apart from the LEDs flashing to show the play, everything else about this game is manual. The players have to keep track of balls, strikes and outs with manual sliders and the men on base are activated by the switches seen under the home plate area.

Box front full

Box front - black version

Box back - black version

Game front

Game back

Box front

Box back

Game front

Game back

Entex - Baseball 3 Canadian Version

Game: Baseball 3 (Canadian Version)
Company: Entex
Model: 6007
Year: 1980
Power: 3 AA batteries or AC adapter

Notes: For Baseball 3, Entex returned to black and now allows the batter to bunt. Additionally, there are two levels for 1 player - professional and amateur.

Notice that the playing field for this game is different than as pictured on the box. The position names have been replaced by baseball player characters and any words that appear are shown in both English and French.

A complete copy of this game will include the scorecards packaged with the game.

Box front

Box back - in French

Game front

Game playing field detail

Pitch control detail

French Instructions

Entex - Baseball 3

Game: Baseball 3
Company: Entex
Model: 6007
Year: 1980
Power: 3 AA batteries or AC adapter

Notes: For Baseball 3, Entex returned to black and now allows the batter to bunt. Additionally, there are two levels for 1 player - professional and amateur.

A complete copy of this game will include the scorecards packaged with the game.

Box front

Box back

Game front

Pitch control detail

Instructions

Entex - Baseball 2

Game: Baseball 2
Company: Entex
Model: 6002
Year: 1979
Power: 3 AA batteries or AC adapter

Notes: This completely redesigned game was the follow-up to the widely successful Entex Baseball game. The main improvement for this version is the scoreboard showing the game totals for each team and the inning. Additionally, the player on the batting team has the ability to attempt steals when playing in two-player mode.

Regardless of the scoring feature, a stack of scorecards was still packaged with the game.