# Unboxing of a 1973 Computer Baseball Arcade Game by MCI **Source:** Pinball Shenanigans **Type:** video **Published:** 2025-12-10 **Duration:** 18m 23s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UL-Im318ZY --- ## Analysis Pinball Shenanigans unboxes a rare 1973 Computer Baseball arcade game by MCI (Milwaukee Coin Industries), discovering it to be a pristine, never-before-documented example with no known photographs on the internet. The team carefully assembles the machine, discovers missing components (light bulbs, ball), and powers it on with partial success, confirming its basic functionality after 50 years of storage. ### Key Claims - [MEDIUM] No photographs of this specific Computer Baseball machine exist on Google; only flyer images are available — _Host states multiple times during unboxing: 'you can only find pictures of the flyers' and 'There are no pictures of this online. Only flyer images.'_ - [MEDIUM] This is one of five Computer Baseball machines produced (indicated by 'Number of pieces, one of five' on shipping crate) — _Visible on crate label during early unboxing_ - [MEDIUM] The machine features wireless controllers that can extend up to 20 feet — _Host states: 'Apparently there's um there's wireless controllers... Can extend up to 20 ft apparently'_ - [HIGH] The machine was packed using a Milwaukee Journal newspaper dated January 7, 1973, confirming provenance — _Hosts find and read the newspaper used as packing material: 'Milwaukee Journal, January 7th, 1973'_ - [HIGH] Multiple components were loose/missing inside the box after 50 years: light bulbs, ball, and socket connectors — _Hosts discover: 'loose light bulbs', 'These runners do not have lights', 'if there is a ball to this game, where the heck is it?'_ ### Notable Quotes > "This actual picture of this is not on Google. I've checked a few times. I'm pretty positive." > — **Host (Mike Dus implied)**, Mid-unboxing > _Establishes rarity and documentation gap for this specific machine model_ > "Could be the only one that has survived in the history of computer baseball." > — **Host**, During vinyl piece inspection > _Suggests extreme rarity of intact examples_ > "I think MCI built this machine on a Friday. Wanted to get home, finish off the 12pack." > — **Host**, During back examination > _Humorous observation about manufacturing quality/care during assembly; cord not fed through properly_ > "I'd say this game is a home run, wouldn't you say?" > — **Host**, End of power-on sequence > _Baseball pun; summary of unboxing success despite non-functional game state_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Computer Baseball | game | 1973 arcade game manufactured by MCI; extremely rare, possibly undocumented example with no known photos on internet | | MCI | company | Milwaukee Coin Industries Limited; manufacturer of Computer Baseball arcade game; early 1970s arcade manufacturer | | Mike Dus | person | Host of Pinball Shenanigans; conducted the unboxing and assembly | | Dale Distributing | company | Original distributor of Computer Baseball in BC (British Columbia); source of machine provenance | | Grazley Garage | location | Location where unboxing and assembly took place | | Kevin | person | Team member who assisted with assembly, particularly leg assembly and leg levelers | | Dutch | person | Team member who applied WD-40, worked on back box hinge, and inspected internal components | | Rob | person | Team member who removed back door, inspected for sparks/explosions during power-on, and tested coin insertion | | Pinball Shenanigans | organization | YouTube series/channel focused on unboxing and restoring arcade and pinball machines | | Allied | game | Another arcade game unboxed in related video; mentioned alongside Computer Baseball unboxing | ### Topics - **Primary:** Arcade machine restoration and preservation, Rare/undocumented arcade equipment discovery, 1970s arcade manufacturing and design, Mechanical arcade game assembly and troubleshooting - **Secondary:** Gaming history documentation and research, Vintage electronics and component condition assessment ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.78) — Hosts express enthusiasm and delight at discovering a rare, undocumented machine in pristine condition. Some frustration with missing components and non-functional gameplay, but overall celebratory tone about successful unboxing and partial power-on. Humor and camaraderie throughout despite technical challenges. ### Signals - **[leak_detection]** Discovery of entirely undocumented Computer Baseball machine; no photographs exist on Google, only flyers—represents significant gap in arcade history documentation (confidence: high) — Host repeatedly confirms no online photos exist; treats this as major discovery. Machine marked 'one of five' suggesting limited production run. - **[market_signal]** Extreme rarity of intact Computer Baseball examples; one host speculates this vinyl piece 'could be the only one that has survived in the history of computer baseball,' indicating poor preservation rate or limited original production (confidence: medium) — Host remarks on vinyl survival and overall machine condition; crate label indicates 'one of five' units - **[product_concern]** Manufacturing quality issues evident: cord not fully routed through back panel (suggesting rushed Friday production), multiple loose components inside cabinet, missing light bulbs and sockets post-storage (confidence: high) — Host jokes 'MCI built this machine on a Friday. Wanted to get home, finish off the 12pack' after discovering cord fed improperly; multiple loose components discovered during assembly --- ## Transcript And uh what is this that we're unboxing? Where's Where's the label? Baseball game. Baseball game. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Stuck underneath the crate. Okay. Oh, wow. This is cool. What do we got? Ooh, computer baseball. Computer baseball. I'm Mike Dus and this [music] is Pinball Shenanigans. still at the Grazley Garage, but we're going to unbox another arcade game from um MCI the early7s. MCI Milwaukee Coin Industries Limited from Dale Distributing in BC. Number of pieces, one of five. Okay. Handle with care. And uh what is this that we're unboxing? Where's Where's the label? It's baseball game. Baseball game. Yeah, if you look it up, it's actually called computer baseball. Possibly. Possibly. We don't know. Here's the thing, though. If that's what this is, you can't find a picture of this on Google. You can only find pictures of the flyers. I haven't actually seen this before. This could be uh incredibly rare. We don't even know what's in the box. So other than baseball game, you guys bought this with this other stuff first thing. I guess we just unboxed this Allied hesitation. So go watch that video if you want to see that action and uh see if we brought this thing to life or not. But here we go. We think this is going to be like very early '7s. Definitely NOS. No, I need that. I mean, with this thing here, the box was kind of in rough shape, so they kind of got a little glimpse of what's in that. What was in that, but we literally have zero idea. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Going to lift it up like a hood or the whole thing is going to just slop off here. No. Stuck underneath the crate. Okay. Oh, wow. Interesting. back. Okay, that is a pristine looking control panel. Okay, we're going to slit this tape here and uh get rid of the hood. All right, let's remove some more cardboard. I'm seeing batter up. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Let's uh Ooh, it's still a nice shape. Hey, what's what year is this? Oh, yeah. Let's check out this newspaper they use to pack up between the legs there just to prevent them from banging around. This is going to be telling you warehouse sale. 25 in color TV. Let me see. You can't read any of that. Let me see this. I want to see what the prices are on the uh warehouse sale. You got the TV guide. Movies on television. What movies do we got? Hurry sundown. Charlie Chan in Shanghai. Six black horses. Oh, here it is. That's probably the the year. Oh, the 1973 edition of the World Almanac has been limited to 1.6 million copies. [laughter] 25 in color TV. Only $569. Holy. Oh, here it is. Look at that. Milwaukee Journal, January 7th, 1973. There we go. Uh oh, it's all sewing machines. Okay, so Singer portable used 1995. Muffler by 15 bucks. Oo, that's a good deal. Look, look at that couch. Oh yeah. 198 bucks. I want me that couch for $200. Couple of those guys. Automatic transmissions for $100. Where's Griffin show? All right, the new Wait, hold on a second. Griffin, one more. Super travel bag is 174 bucks. No way. Our most popular three night holiday jet from Milwaukee Hotel special. Oh no, there's more features galore 174. Hey, look at that. It's 150 bucks for a 21in zith. Oo, color TV. Let's move on to the uh star of the show here. This is looking good. There's our power switch. Oh, this is cool. What do we got? Ooh, neat. I got it. I got it. Computer baseball. Computer baseball. This thing is Okay, the other thing was technically new in box. This thing is minty. This is mint in box. There's no mouse nests yet. Is this what you said there's no photos of on the internet? No, you you can find I now I can see it. I know what this thing is. Yeah, you can only see the flyer. This actual picture of this is not on Google. I've checked a few times. I'm pretty positive. Well, we'll have to double check, but that's pretty freaking cool. Look at these corners. They're It looks like we're going to be firing up balls up into here and trying to land in the slots. I read something that there's actually So, here's the controls. It looks like there's This goes on top of this probably. I think you're right. Let's move that aside and then uh get into this other piece here. But this is beautiful. Apparently there's um there's wireless controllers. Oh, yeah. It can Oh, that's high tech. Can extend up to 20 ft apparently. Oh, really? You can sit on your couch and play this game. Well, this is supposed to be like a bar. Oh, what do we got? What do we got? Ooh, interesting. Yeah, that's true. Maybe you can sit at the bar at your bar stool and play this behind the counter. All right, get rid of this Yeah, we're just going to get rid of all this crap. All right, we found the key when we were getting rid of all of the uh cardboard going in. We need a little WD40 spritz on that. That works almost every time. Little bit rusty. Coin return here. It's a oneway ticket to get there. All right. What is this? Oh, that's where the key probably was. Fell out of there. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, look who showed up. The party is here. Look at these. What do you got there, champ? Got a bunch of little things here. You're always a bag of goodies in my hand. Well, you came just in time for the unboxing of baseball. Computer baseball, but uh baseball. Well, we'll get to the trophy later. That's going to be a different unboxing video. But look at this. Check this out. There are no pictures of this online. That's a top for that. Yeah, it sits on top. I believe there are no images of this on Google. Only flyer images. And who manufactured this? MCI. MCI. Can I say that? Deposit coin batting. Pick your pitch and press lighted about the oddball stuff. [laughter] Three. Fielding. Press unlighted button to block. Scoring play. Ooh, this sounds fun. Batter up. Batter up. And you can even use too. This we just unboxed. All the cardboard outside was from that this thing, too. We're going to have to uh send some photos to the internet because uh there may not be many or any ready to play with. We're going to have to try out a quarter into this thing. How's the uh WD40 operation going? It's not working. Oh no. Is there any chance there's a different key? What if you guys didn't know? It's just a simple couple connectors here. Present for Kevin. Some side rails. All right. You get so mess with these locks for a minute and then we will be right back. Okay. Kevin's been uh working away at assembling the legs and leg levelers. Dutch has been WD40ing the backbox hinge here. back door hinge and we have access now we are in can get a really good look. Uh what's going on here? What is a little solenoid? Oh, okay. Hold on. Do that. I want to see what happens over here. Is that probably ball release or something? Once all the balls go in there. [clears throat] If there is balls. Is there balls? Where? If there's balls, where are they? There's definitely got to be balls. In that little Tupperware. No, no, nothing. Nothing in the Tupperware. Right. Okay, somewhere we've got little transformer here. Circuit board. Circuit board. Circuit board. Circuit board. There. These are the connectors that go to the other part. One fuse here. Interesting. Like coils there. Couple more loose light bulbs. Where did these all fall out of? [snorts] And then all these boards. This is crazy. And they all have little dials on them for whatever. Dials galore. Manual on this thing. Another transformer. Yeah. Where's the uh paperwork? Oh, here's the paperwork. Found it. [snorts] We got this. And this robots in disguise. And this. And we got a fluorescent tube to light the marquee. Mixie tubes to [clears throat] light the scores. One, two, three, four, five. Like six of them. [snorts] Okay. Okay. Well, and then there's like a main inline fuse here. What is that? That's just a screw going through. And then this is a volume adjustment. Ah, look. It's tied right to the speaker. Oh, yes. You're smart. And then this button. What does this button do? Huh? Where does that go? Oh, here's a connector here. You don't want to receat that just for good measure. I mean, maybe push these guys in, too, cuz these guys look like they need to be shoved in a little bit. I mean, I guess I don't have to be scared of this. [snorts] This thing's brand new. There's no power in here. Uh, no CRT to uh kill you either. So, sweet. Although CRT would have been fine if we had to turn it on. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it was turned on at the factory at some point. Three years ago. Yeah, true. I will I will wager [snorts] a guess that I would probably have been fine. The capsu probably have discharged since half a decade ago. Oh, it's not the most pretty. A little bit of corrosion. Looks like make it work. We got some legs happening over here. We're having some issues with the last T-nut here for the legs. It was not cooperating. Did you find a new T-nut or something? No, I just recaped this one. Oh, nice. And we're talking about this vinyl piece here. like the fact that this is not completely disintegrated. Could be the only one that has survived in the history of computer baseball. And uh what's going on back here? Rob took off the uh back door here. One inning for one quarter, two innings for one quarter. I was looking over. Wait, one inning for one quarter and two innings for one quarter. Yep. Okay. Oh, it depends on what slot you put it in, I guess. Or maybe there's probably just a little adjustment. I was looking at this like these. Did they leave these loose? Cuz these maybe have to get connected. Yeah, they might have to get connected. But we got a couple of light bulbs here cuz they're not crimped on the other end. So maybe something should be that's like the female and the male. Yeah, there's a there's a females on this side or something. Okay. Well, there's Where are the two other screws? There's connectors back here. I will stand here and record while you guys assemble everything. And uh perhaps time lapse, but I must document all of the action. Okay, here we go. [music] All right, assembly is pretty much complete. Check this thing out. I can't tell if that's the door seizing or I'm pressing on something. It It wasn't without some difficulties, but uh I'm scaring myself. I heard a rumor that there is a goodie bag or at least a manual in here. Let's see what we got. Ah, yes. Kev, you want to grab that out of there? First time removal of the instructions. Put that back in there. Manual computer grade. Dutch, can you push that wire back in there? It's fighting me. Dang. Can you stop pushing on my hand? Yep. Okay, now go. Okay. MCI. [clears throat] Oh, you got all this Hang on. A Come on. Unacceptable. Hey, maybe that's what uh the other connectors go into. No, but they're both female ends. These are male ends. Okay. Check it out. Yeah. Oops. Original manual. We're still trying to figure out like Wait a second. Hold on. Open that back up. I got I figured it out. Control shoes. Like you just stick them through here. Now you can access them. But are they? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still not the right ends match. Are those Yeah, they don't look like they're going to match. All right. Have a line done. Might actually have to read this manual at some point to figure that out. But read that right now. I don't think that's going to be critical to the operation of the game. So, here it is. We're going to turn this on shortly, but have a look. And let's see at the back again. Mr. Beer, do you want to Vanna White this? All right. Open her up. Let's see what we got. Touch the key. We fed the cord through the bottom. The Dana White. There is a notch here, but to feed the cord out, but didn't quite go all the way through. So, we think MCI built this machine on a Friday. Wanted to get home, finish off the 12pack. Here we go. So, we got some crusties here and there. Some crusties here and there. Ooh, that's probably not good to put on your fingers. Oh, and the other thing we found is want to grab those sockets. Oh, yeah. So, it wasn't just the light bulbs that fell out. These board mounted sockets. I bet you if I just touch that, it's going to fall off. These are sockets, and bulbs. So, what it looks like is the runners run from base to base. And yeah, you can see they're all missing. These runners do not have lights cuz they are in Dutch's hand. So, we're going to be missing a few lights at the very least. But I think it's time. I think it is time. I'm going to come around on this side. I'm going to stand in the back. Dutch is uh uh Kevin's going to grab the power. Rob's going to inspect the back for any sparks or explosions or smoke. The uh hesitation did have a electrical fragrance to it when we had it on for a bit. Okay. So, I was going to say I'm trying to follow this. Is it on the back door? I think trying to find the onoff switch here. Button back here that goes to the There is a button on the back, but this button. Yeah, that that button. I don't know if that's the onoff switch or not. Rob Ver has his quarters ready to go. So, can stick in a quarter. It'll have one earned credit in the audits, off. Maybe it only turns one when you Maybe we should just plug it in and see what happens. I feel like we're saying I think we should probably plug it in. That might help. All right, hold on. Hold on. Computer baseball in three, two, one. Yeah, we got a light bulb. Nothing in the back. Oh, wait. Balance is warming up. Oh yeah. Can the marquee come on? Back glass is lit. Mary's coming on. Yeah, you got to lift that up slightly. We've got marquee light. I probably don't want to jam too much. Okay, here we go. Sticking in the first quarter. Wait. I can't see. Is it going to make a noise? All right. Come on. Big money. No whammies. [laughter] That sounded heard. That sounded like a whammy. Yeah. And if there is a ball to this game, where the heck is it? It must be inside somewhere. [snorts] All right. and manually activate the switch and see in the Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can see it's stuck in there. Return doesn't work, though. Did it go through? I think so. All right. Well, we can do the old just jump the two switches together with a key and credit it up. No, nothing's happening. No computer baseball. Well, power switch. It's like you think not unexpected. You got some wires hanging out like when I put the coin thing back. So, you know, I'm not expecting this thing to work perfectly after 50 years of storage and a fresh unboxing, but got a couple light bulbs and uh I'd say this game is a home run, wouldn't you say? Great fun. There you go. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, that might be the end of this video cuz I don't think we're going to get this thing functioning any more than it is. But, uh, there you go. Computer baseball. _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 208b0ca5-ab6c-4952-8afc-38102aa55571*