Green Bay Packers

1=The NFL was originally named the American Professional Football Association (APFA) from 1920-1922.. Article. Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties. Peter's College took up the challenge. Interceptions: Al Harris, 3 Interceptions. Of the two schools that were asked to participate, only St. Sacks: Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, 8.0 Sacks. In 1974, students at Jersey City State College wanted to make pinball playing a varsity school sport, like football was, so they started a Pinball Club Team to compete against clubs at other schools.

Tackles: Nick Barnett, 91 Tackles. Things came full circle when Bally created the Wizard pinball game featuring Ann-Margret and The Who's Roger Daltry on the backglass. Punt Return Yards: Antonio Chatman, 381 Yards. (The album was subsequently made into a movie and stage play.) Wizard has since moved into popular usage as a term for an expert pinball player. Kickoff Return Yards: Ahmad Carroll, 390 Yards. Perhaps the most famous instance is the rock opera album Tommy by British band The Who (1969), which centers on the title character, a "deaf, dumb, and blind kid", who nevertheless becomes a "pinball wizard" and who later uses pinball as a symbol and tool for his messianic mission. Points: Ryan Longwell, 90 points. Pinball games have frequently been featured in popular culture, often as a symbol of rebellion or toughness.

Receiving Touchdowns: Donald Driver, 5 TD. Today, video game players and computer users can find pinball simulators for practically every platform and operating system. Receiving Yards: Donald Driver, 1221 Yards. Flipper button computer peripherals were also released, allowing pinball fans to add an accurate feel to their game play instead of using the keyboard or mouse. Rushing Touchdowns: Samkon Gado, 6 TD. As processor and graphics capabilities have improved, more accurate ball physics and 3D pinball simulations have become possible (though a truly convincing model of pinball physics and control has remained elusive). Rushing Yards: Samkon Gado, 582 Yards. Most earlier simulations were top-down 2D.

QB Rating: Brett Favre, 70.9. While there had been earlier pinball video games, such as Pinball for the Atari 2600, Pinball Construction Set was the first program that allowed the user to create their own simulated pinball machine and then play it. Passing Touchdowns Brett Favre 20 TD. Simulating a pinball machine has also been a popular theme of computer games, most famously when Bill Budge wrote Pinball Construction Set for the Apple II in 1983. Passing Yards Brett Favre 3881 Yards. The USENET group rec.games.pinball is also a resource for repair information. As a result of their dismal season, the Packers ended up with the fifth overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, which is to be held April 29-30 in New York City. Pinball repair guides aimed at the novice are available here: [3].

This included four straight playoff appearances and three straight NFC North division titles, both of which came to an end in 2005. Partly for this reason, much of the focus of the pinball hobbyist community has shifted away from arcades and towards enthusiasts who keep one or more machines at home, and do their own maintenance and repair (or hire technicians to do it). Sherman compiled records of 9-7, 12-4, 12-4, 10-6, 10-6 and 4-12. As such, the development, maintenance and repair expenses are high compared to video games, which mostly lack moving parts. One day after the conclusion of the regular season, Packers General Manager Ted Thompson announced the firing of head coach Mike Sherman, who'd enjoyed six years at the helm of the team. Some of these failures can be attributed to damage caused to the machine by the balls themselves; a ball in a modern machine may reach speeds as high as 40 m/s, and will thus strike playfield elements with a great deal of force. Also hampered by injuries yet remaining in the line-up are linebacker Na'il Diggs and Favre, who has suffered repeated ailments to his throwing hand. Modern pinball games are exceedingly complex devices, with numerous opportunities for mechanical and electrical failures.

For example, wide receiver Javon Walker and running backs Ahman Green, Najeh Davenport, and Samkon Gado have all suffered major injuries. In such cases, a player may even walk away from a machine with several games left on it. The team's offensive roster has been devastated by injuries, including notable 2005 starters or backups. By earning extra balls, a single game can be stretched out for a long period, and if the player is playing well he or she can earn replays by points and possibly also free games, known as "specials". The Packers' November 27 loss to the Eagles assured the Packers their first losing season since 1991 and Brett Favre's first losing season in his career. Skilled players can often play on a machine for long periods of time on a single coin. The Packers finished their season at 4-12, in last place in the NFC North division (one game behind the third-place Detroit Lions). More recent machines have recognized this maneuver as a legitimate one though, even going so far as to grant the player a point reward for a successful death save.

[3]. Usually the death save is performed by kicking one of the legs of the machine with great force, which is why the move is unpopular with many players. Among the suggestions were "Pickers" refering to vegetable farmers, and "Six-Packers" in reference to the famous Wisconsin brewing industry. If the timing is exactly correct, a player may hold a flipper up and then nudge the machine hard enough (but not so hard as to tilt the machine) to pop the ball back up into play on to the opposite flipper. Due to the fact that "Packer" refers to "meat-packing," the animal rights organization PETA asked the team in in 2000 to change its name to a more "peaceful" name. The death save may only be performed when a ball has dropped through an outlane and is heading down toward the drain. This color scheme yields the common Packers nickname, "The Green and Gold". Very few pinball players can successfully perform this advanced technique.

In 1959, new head coach Vince Lombardi changed the colors to the current hunter green and athletic gold/yellow (navy blue was kept as a secondary color, but it was not actually used and quietly was dropped from the team colors list on all official materials shortly thereafter). One controversial technique for saving the ball is called a "death save" or "bangback". In the 1930s, the Packers briefly experimented with green and gold, although they always returned to the traditional navy. If successful, this will cause the ball to bounce up and back into play. Lambeau, a Notre Dame alumnus, chose the team's colors of blue and gold/yellow from his alma mater. When this feature is present, the advanced player may then attempt to perform a "chill maneuver" when the ball is heading directly toward the pin by opting to not hit a flipper. Acme continued its support of Lambeau's team, and in its first season in the NFL the team wore jerseys with the words "ACME PACKERS" emblazoned on the chest. Occasionally a pinball machine will have a pin or post placed directly between the two bottom flippers.

In 1920, the Indian Packing Company was purchased by the Acme Packing Company. The ball will then often bounce across the table to the other flipper, where the ball may then be hit (or trapped) by the opposite flipper. These never were official nicknames, although Lambeau did consider replacing "Packers" with "Blues" in the 1920s. This is done by tapping the flipper button quickly enough so that the trapped ball is knocked back at an angle of less than 90 degrees into the bottom of the nearest slingshot. In the early days, the Packers also were referred to as the "Bays" and the "Blues" (and even occasionally as "the Big Bay Blues"). Once a player has successfully trapped a ball, they may then attempt to "juggle" the ball to the other flipper. The new Green Bay team was referred to as "the Indians" in one of the earliest newspaper articles about the new squad, but by the time they played their first game they had adopted the name "Packers.". Usually this is done by trapping one or more balls out of play with one flipper, then using the other flipper to score points with the remaining ball or balls.

He was given $500 for uniforms and equipment, on the condition that the team be named for its sponsor (this is similar to what would happen the following year with the Decatur Staleys, who would become the Chicago Bears). Multi-ball games, in particular, reward trapping techniques. Curly Lambeau, the team's founder, solicited funds for uniforms from his employer, the Indian Packing Company. The player then chooses the moment when they want to hit the flipper again, timing the shot as the ball slides slowly against the flipper. To poke fun at this nickname, they wear foam triangles made to look like cheese on their heads, which further reinforces the "cheesehead" designation. This technique involves catching the ball in the corner between the base of the flipper and the wall to its side, just as the ball falls towards the flipper; the flipper is then released, which calls the ball to roll slowly downward against the flipper. Packer fans are commonly known as "cheeseheads," a derogatory nickname for people from Wisconsin, as the state is known for its cheese production among a variety of other items. This is known as "trapping".

The Packers also draw the largest national TV audiences for the NFL's Monday Night Football telecasts. Skilled players can also hold a ball in place with the flipper, giving them more control over where they want to place the ball when they shoot it forward. For this reason, it is not unusual for fans to designate a recipient of their season tickets in their wills. A slam tilt will typically end the current game for all players. The current wait time for season tickets is approximately 35 years. This has apparently recently been made obsolete. The Packers have one of the longest waiting lists for season tickets in professional sports. Until recently most games also had a "slam tilt" switch which guarded against kicking or slamming the coin mechanism, which could give a false indication that a coin had been inserted, thereby giving a "free" game or credit.

The Packers' fan base is notoriously dedicated: No matter how the team performs, Lambeau Field has been sold out every game since 1960. Older games, especially one-player games, would end the whole game on a tilt; modern games sacrifice only the ball in play. The Super Bowl trophy was ultimately named the Vince Lombardi Trophy in recognition of his and his team's accomplishment. Newer machines typically also make some loud noise on a tilt, presumably so as to draw negative attention to the player who is abusing the machine. Green Bay won the first two Super Bowls. When this happens, the game registers a "tilt" and locks out, disabling all scoring switches and solenoids so that the ball can do nothing other than rolling all the way down the playfield to the drain. Coach Vince Lombardi took over a last-place team and built it into a juggernaut, winning five league championships over a seven-year span. The mechanisms generally include a grounded plumb bob centered in an electrified steel ring - when the machine is jostled too far or too hard, the bob bumps up against the ring, completing a circuit; and an electrified ball on a slight ramp with a grounded post at the top of the ramp - when the front of the machine is lifted (literally, tilted) too high, the ball rolls to the top of the ramp and completes the circuit.

The Packers of the 1960s were one of the most dominant NFL teams of all time. The tilt mechanisms guard against excessive manipulation of this sort. They are also the only American professional football team to win three straight titles, which they did twice (1929-1931 and 1965-67). Skillful players can influence the movement of the ball by nudging or bumping the pinball machine. The Packers have won more league championships (12, including three Super Bowls) than any other American professional football team. A skilled player can quickly "learn the angles" and gain a high level of control of ball motion. The balance of the committee is sitting "gratis.". The primary skill of pinball involves application of the proper timing and technique to the operation of the flippers.

The president is the only officer who receives compensation. When an extra game is won, the machine typically makes a single loud bang, most often with a solenoid that strikes a piece of metal with a rod, known as a knocker, or less commonly with loudspeakers. The board of directors in turn elect a seven-member Executive Committee (officers) of the corporation, consisting of a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and three members-at-large. Ways to get a replay might include:. As a means of running the corporation, a board of directors is elected by the stockholders. Pinball designers also entice players with the chance to win an extra game or replay. No shareholder is allowed to own more than 200,000 shares, a safeguard to ensure that no one individual is able to assume control of the club. In a multiplayer game, the player who just lost his ball is the same one to shoot again.

Shares of stock include voting rights, but the redemption price is minimal, no dividends are ever paid, the stock cannot appreciate in value, and there are no season ticket privileges associated with stock ownership. When a machine says "SHOOT AGAIN" on the scoreboard, it means that you have an extra ball to shoot. As of June 8, 2005, 111,921 people (representing 4,749,925 shares) can lay claim to a franchise ownership interest. Common features in modern pinball games include the following:. Priced at $200 per share, fans bought 120,010 shares during the 17-week sale, which ended March 16, 1998. Recent pinball games are distinguished by increasingly complex rule sets that require a measure of strategy and planning by the player for maximum scoring. It added 105,989 new shareholders and raised more than $24 million, money utilized for the Lambeau Field redevelopment project. Pinball scoring objectives can be quite complex and require a series of targets to be hit in a particular order.

Another stock sale occurred late in 1997 and early in 1998. Pinball games have become increasingly complex and multiple play modes, multi-level playfields, and even progression through a rudimentary "plot" have become common features on recent games. In 1956, area voters approved the construction of a new stadium, which in 1963 became Lambeau Field. There are other idiosyncratic features on many pinball playfields. In 1950, the Packers held a stock sale to again raise money to support the team. Common scoring targets include:. At the November 1997 annual meeting, shareholders voted to change the beneficiary from the Sullivan-Wallen Post to the Green Bay Packers Foundation. Many types of targets and features have been developed over the years.

Based on the original "Articles of Incorporation for the (then) Green Bay Football Corporation" put into place in 1923, if the Packers franchise was sold, after the payment of all expenses, any remaining monies would go to the Sullivan-Wallen Post of the American Legion in order to build "a proper soldier's memorial." This stipulation was enacted to ensure the club remained in Green Bay and that there could never be any financial enhancement for the shareholders. The key attribute of a successful pinball game is an interesting and challenging layout of scoring opportunities. The Packers did not move their entire home schedule to Green Bay until 1995. Getting a hundred points by the end of a game is considered respectable, which makes it one of the lowest scoring pinball machines of all time. However, the Packers have long had a large following throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest; in fact, for decades, the Packers played four (one pre-season, three regular-season) home games each year in Milwaukee. Another recent curiosity is the 1997 Bally game NBA Fastbreak which, true to its theme, awards points in terms of a real basketball score: Each successful shot can give from one to three points. By comparison, the typical NFL football city usually is populated in the millions. Dude made fun of this trend, offering the player a chance to score a "Gazillion" point jackpot.

Typically, a team is owned by one person, partnership, or corporate entity; thus, a "team owner." It has been speculated that this is one of the reasons the Green Bay Packers have never been moved from the city of Green Bay, a city of just over 100,000 people. In 1990, the Bally pinball machine Dr. The Packers are now the only publicly owned company with a board of directors in American professional sports. Since then, there has been a trend of scoring inflation, with modern machines often requiring scores of over a billion points to win a free game. The financial backers, known as the "Hungry Five," formed the Green Bay Football Corporation. Average scores soon began to commonly increase back into tens or hundreds of thousands. The Packers found new backers the next year and regained the franchise. (Although, in an effort to keep with the traditional high scores attained with the painted backglass games, the first pinball machines to use mechanical wheels for scoring, such as Army Navy, allowed the score to reach into the millions by adding a number of permanent zeros to the end of the score.) The average score changed again in the 1970s with the advent of electronic displays.

Financial troubles plagued the team and the franchise was lost the same year. (Frequently the lights represented scores in the hundreds of thousands.) Then later, during the 1950s and 1960s when the scoring mechanism was limited to mechanical wheels, high scores were frequently only in the hundreds or thousands. The Packers became a professional franchise in 1921. During the 1930s and the 1940s, lights mounted behind the painted backglass were used for scoring purposes, making the scoring somewhat arbitrary. He was given $500 for uniforms and equipment, on the condition that the team be named for its sponsor. Pinball scoring can be peculiar and varies greatly from machine to machine. Lambeau solicited funds for uniforms from his employer, the Indian Packing Company. In later games these tasks have been taken over by semiconductor chips and displays are made on electronic segmented or dot matrix displays.

The Green Bay Packers were founded on August 11, 1919 by Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun. Older pinball machines used an electromechanical system for scoring wherein a pulse from a switch would cause a complex mechanism composed of relays to ratchet up the score. . Electrical switches embedded in the scoring elements detect contact and relay this information to the scoring mechanism. [2]. Contact with or manipulation of scoring elements scores points for the player. Currently, a total of 4,749,925 shares are owned by 111,921 stockholders - none of whom receives any dividend. The entire machine is designed to be as eye-catching (some would say gaudy) as possible; every possible space is filled with graphics, blinking lights, and themed objects.

The Packers are currently the only publicly owned major league level professional sports team in the United States (although other teams, such as the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, and the New York Rangers are directly owned by publicly traded companies). Recent machines are typically "tied-in" to other enterprises such as a popular film series, toy, or brand name. The team also holds the distinction of winning the first two AFL-NFL Championship Games that were held before the AFL-NFL Merger, later referred to as Super Bowl I and II. Games are generally built around a particular theme, such as a sport or character. The team currently holds the record for the most NFL league championships with 12: nine NFL Championships prior to the Super Bowl era, Super Bowl I, Super Bowl II, and Super Bowl XXXI. This area features the scoring display and eye-catching graphics including the name of the machine. Founded in 1919, the Packers joined the NFL in 1921 during the league's second season. The backglass is a vertical panel mounted at the back of the machine.

Green Bay is by far the smallest media market to be the home of a North American major professional sports league (though their fanbase includes Milwaukee, the rest of Wisconsin, and beyond). In 1947, the first mechanical flippers appeared on Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty and by the early 1950s, the familiar two-flipper configuration was standard. The Packers are the last remaining example of the "small town teams" that comprised a majority of the NFL during the 1920s. (These pins gave the game its name). The team is sometimes affectionately referred to as simply 'The Pack'. The very first pinball games appeared in the early 1930s and did not have flippers; after launch the ball simply proceeded down the playfield, directed by static nails (or "pins") to one of several scoring areas. They currently belong to the Northern Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). With the flippers, the player attempts to move the ball to hit various types of scoring targets, and to keep the ball from disappearing off the bottom of the playfield.

The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Careful timing and positional control allows the player to intentionally direct the ball in a range of directions with various levels of velocity. Split games between Milwaukee and Green Bay (1933-1994). They are the main control that the player has over the ball. Independent (1919-1920)
National Football League (1921-present). The flippers are one or more small mechanically or electromechanically-controlled levers, roughly 3 to 7 cm in length, used for redirecting the ball up the playfield. Note: Basketball teams from Chicago and Anderson once used the name Packers as well.. In modern machines, an electronically-controlled launcher is sometimes substituted for the plunger.

Brandon Johnson - Strength & conditioning assistant. Once the ball is in motion in the main area of the playfield, the plunger is not used again until another ball must be brought onto the playfield. Mark Lovat - Strength & conditioning assistant. This is often used for a "skill shot", in which a player attempts to launch a ball so that it exactly hits a specified target. Rock Gullickson - Strength & conditioning. The player can control the amount of force used for launching by pulling the plunger a certain distance (thus changing the spring compression). Brad Miller - Special teams assistant. The plunger is a spring-loaded rod with a small handle, used to propel the ball into the playfield.

Mike Stock - Special teams coordinator. Score is kept separately for each player. Shawn Slocum - Defensive assistant. Typically in a modern in a two-player game, each player gets three balls to play. Lionel Washington - Defensive nickel package. In multiplayer games, each player gets his or her fair share of balls. Carl Hairston - Defensive ends. During the course of play, a player can sometimes earn extra balls, and in those cases, the extra balls are played immediately.

Robert Nunn - Defensive tackles. In games with more than one player, players alternate turns playing, one ball per turn. Winston Moss - Linebackers. In more modern games, it can be either three or five, at the operator's discretion. Kurt Schottenheimer - Defensive backs. The number of balls played was up to ten in very old machines, usually five in games of the 1940s through 1970s, and typically became three balls in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Bob Sanders - Defensive coordinator. The game ends when a specified number of balls have been lost off the bottom of the playfield, or drained.

Ben McAdoo - Tight ends. However, excessive nudging is generally penalized by the loss of the current player's turn (known as tilting) or ending of the entire game when the nudging is particularly violent (known as slam tilting). Jimmy Robinson - Wide receivers. Manipulation of the ball may also be accomplished by nudging (physically pushing the cabinet). Ty Knott - Offensive quality control. To return the ball to the upper part of the playfield, the player makes use of one or more flippers. James Campen - Offensive line assistant. Once a ball is in play, it tends to move downward towards the player, although the ball can move in any direction, sometimes unpredictably, as the result of contact with objects on the playfield or by the player's own actions.

Edgar Bennett - Running backs. With both devices the result is the same: The ball is propelled upwards onto the playfield. Joe Philbin - Offensive line. The ball is put into play by use of the plunger, a spring-loaded rod that strikes the ball as it rests in an entry lane, or as in some newer games, by a button that signals the game logic to fire a solenoid that strikes the ball. Tom Clements - Quarterbacks. The playfield is a planar surface inclined upward from three to seven degrees (current convention is six and a half degrees), away from the player, and includes multiple targets and scoring objectives. Jeff Jagodzinski - Offensive coordinator. The machine is scheduled for production in 2009.

Mike McCarthy. In November 2005, The Pinball Factory, based in Melbourne, Australia, announced that they would be producing a new Crocodile Hunter-themed pinball machine under the Bally label. 2006 To be announced (5th overall pick). In fact, almost all members of the design teams for Stern Pinball are former employees of Williams. 2005 Aaron Rodgers. Stern Pinball is the only current manufacturer of pinball machines. 2004 Ahmad Carroll. The reception was lukewarm and Williams exited the pinball business to focus on making gaming equipment for casinos, licensing the rights to Bally/Williams parts and names to Illinois Pinball.

2003 Nick Barnett. In 1999, Williams attempted to revive sales with the Pinball 2000 line of games, merging a video display into the pinball playfield. 2002 Javon Walker. By this time, Williams had shrunk its production runs significantly and reduced the manufacturing cost of their machines by incorporating fewer playfield toys than in earlier games. 2001 Jamal Reynolds. Sega later sold their pinball division to Gary Stern (President of Sega Pinball at the time) who called his company Stern Pinball. 2000 Bubba Franks. By 1997 there were only two companies left: Sega Pinball and Williams.

1999 Antuan Edwards. Data East was acquired by Sega and became Sega Pinball for a few years. 1998 Vonnie Holliday. The end of the 1990s saw another downturn in the industry, with Gottlieb, Capcom, and Alvin G all closing their doors by the end of 1996. 1997 Ross Verba. About a year after, Lawlor announced a return to the industry, starting his own company (Pat Lawlor Design) working in conjunction with Stern Pinball to produce new games into the new millennium. 1996 John Michels. Pat Lawlor was the designer, working for Williams up until their closure in 1999.

1995 Craig Newsome. Other notable popular licenses included Popeye Saves the Earth and Congo. Expanding markets in Europe and Asia helped fuel the boom. 1994 Aaron Taylor. Two years later, Williams commemorated this benchmark with a limited edition of 1,000 Addams Family Gold pinball machines, featuring gold-colored trim and updated software with new game features. 1993 Wayne Simmons and George Teague. Licensing popular movies and icons of the day became a staple for pinball, with Bally/Williams' The Addams Family hitting an all-time modern sales record of 20,270 copies. 1992 Terrell Buckley. The games from Williams now dominated the industry, with complicated mechanical devices and more elaborate display and sound systems attracting new players to the game.

1991 Vinnie Clark. Gary Stern, the son of Williams co-founder Sam Stern, founded Data East pinball with funding from Data East Japan. 1990 Tony Bennett and Darrell Thompson. Some new manufacturers entered the field such as Capcom Pinball and Alvin G and Company, founded by Alvin Gottlieb, son of David Gottlieb. 1989 Tony Mandarich. After the collapse of the coin-operated video game industry, pinball saw another comeback in the 1990s. 1988 Sterling Sharpe. Bally exited the pinball business in 1988 and sold their assets to Williams, who subsequently used the Bally trademark on about half of their pinball releases from then on.

1987 Brent Fullwood. Chicago Coin was purchased by the Stern family who brought the company into the digital era as Stern Enterprises, which closed its doors in the mid-1980's. 1986 Traded away. Many of the larger companies were acquired by corporations or merged with other companies. 1985 Ken Ruettgers. Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb continued to quietly make pinball's while they also manufactured video games in much higher numbers. 1984 Alphonso Carreker. Arcades quickly replaced rows of pinball machines with games like Asteroids and Pac-Man, which earned incredible amounts of money compared to the pinball's of the day and required much less mechanical maintenance.

1983 Tim Lewis. The video game fad of the 1980s, however, signaled the end of the boom for pinball. 1982 Ron Hallstrom. Companies like Bally thrived in this era, selling large amounts of games with fancy sound effects, speech, and game features that only a computer could make possible. 1981 Rich Campbell. The electromechanical relays and scoring reels that drove games in the 50s and 60s were now replaced with circuit boards and digital displays. 1980 Bruce Clark and George Cumby. The advent of the microprocessor in the early 1970s brought another new age for pinball.

1979 Eddie Lee Ivory. Although they share a common ancestry, the games are very different, in that pachinko simply involves shooting many small balls one after the other into a nearly-vertical playfield while pinball is about the manipulation of the small number of balls currently in play. 1978 James Lofton and John Anderson. Another close relative to pinball is Pachinko, a gambling game played in Japan. 1977 Mike Butler and Morris Brown. Most recent games are clearly labeled "FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY" so that the manufacturer can emphasize their legitimate, legal nature. 1976 Mark Koncar. Some towns in America still have these bans on the law books over fifty years later.

1975 Traded away. Nevertheless, on occasion pinball games have been regulated or banned, notably in New York City beginning in the 1940s and continuing until 1976. 1974 Barty Smith. This type of feature was later discontinued, in an effort to legitimize the machines. 1973 Barry Smith. Other machines allowed a player to accumulate large numbers of free "games" which could then be redeemed for money. 1972 Willie Buchanon and Jerry Tagge. However, doing this was nearly random, and the real use for such machines was for gambling (similar to the way many places now use video poker).

1971 John Brockington. Free games could be won if the player was skillful enough to get three balls in a row. 1970 Mike McCoy and Rich McGeorge. Some pinball machines, such as Bally's "bingos", featured a grid on the backglass scoring area. 1969 Rich Moore. Pinball machines, like many other mechanical games, were sometimes used as gambling devices. 1968 Fred Carr and Bill Lueck. Pinball has long been associated with various disreputable activities.

1967 Bob Hyland and Don Horn. Game designer Wayne Neyens along with artist Leroy Parker turned out game after game that collectors consider some of the most classic pinball machines ever designed. 1966 Jim Grabowski and Gale Gillingham. The post-war era was dominated by Gottlieb. 1965 Donny Anderson and Larry Elkins. Multiplayer scores were added soon after, and then bells and other noise-makers, all of which began to make pinball less a game and more of an experience. 1964 Lloyd Voss. Targets were added, spinning scoring reels replaced games featuring static scores lit from behind.

1963 Dave Robinson. The new flipper ushered in the "golden age" of pinball, where the fierce competition between the various pinball manufacturers led to constant innovation in the field. 1962 Earl Gros. This major innovation was one of many by designer Steve Kordek, also credited with introducing the very first "drop target" (1962 on Vagabond) and "multiball" (1963 on Beat the Clock) concepts to the game, which are considered as essentials to the pinball experience. 1961 Herb Adderly. Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty, introduced in 1947, was the first game to add player-controlled flippers to keep the ball in play longer and added a skill factor to the game. 1960 Tom Moore. Innovations such as the tilt mechanism and free games (known as replays) appeared.

1959 Randy Duncan. Pinball saw another golden age of growth. 1958 Dan Currie. By the end of the war, a generation of Americans looked for amusement in their bars and malt shops. 1957 Paul Hornung and Ron Kramer. Some companies like Williams bought old games from operators and refurbished them, adding new artwork with a patriotic theme. 1956 Jack Losch. During World War II all of the major manufacturing companies in coin-operated games were put into use manufacturing equipment for the American war effort.

1955 Tom Bettis. Competition between the companies was brutal, however, and by 1934 there were only 14 companies left. 1954 Art Hunter and Veryl Switzer. Chicago has been the center of pinball manufacturing ever since. 1953 Al Carmichael. By the end of 1932 there were approximately 150 companies manufacturing pinball machines, most of them in the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA. 1952 Babe Parilli. In addition, electric lights soon became a standard feature of all subsequent pinball games, designed to attract people to the game.

1951 Bob Gain. Other manufacturers quickly followed suit with similar features. 1950 Clayton Tonnemaker. The designer of Contact, Harry Williams, would eventually form his own company, Williams Manufacturing, in 1944. 1949 Stan Heath. Another solenoid rang a bell to reward the player. 1948 Earl "Jug" Girard. Contact had an electrically powered solenoid to propel the ball out of a bonus hole in the middle of the playfield.

1947 Ernie Case. A company called Pacific Amusements in Los Angeles, California, USA produced a game called Contact in 1933. 1946 Johnny Strzyalski. The 1930s saw a leap forward in innovation in pinball design and devices with the introduction of electrification. 1945 Walt Schlinkman. These early machines were relatively small, mechanically simple and originally designed to sit on a counter or bar top. 1944 Merv Pregulman. Moloney eventually changed the name of his company to Bally to reflect the success of this game.

1943 Dick Wildung. The game became a smash hit as well, its larger playfield and ten pockets making it more of a challenge than Baffle Ball, selling 50,000 units in 7 months[2]. 1942 Urban Odson. In his frustration he founded Lion Manufacturing to produce a game of his own design, Ballyhoo, named after a popular magazine of the day. 1941 George Paskvan. In 1932, Gottlieb distributor Ray Moloney found it hard to obtain more Baffle Ball units to sell. 1940 Hal Van Every. Baffle Ball sold over 50,000 units and established Gottlieb as the first major manufacturer of pinball machines.

1939 Larry Buhler. Most drugstores and taverns in America operated pinball machines, with many locations making back the cost of the game in a matter of days. 1938 Cecil Isbell. The game struck a chord with a public eager for cheap entertainment in a depression-era economy. 1937 Ed Jankowski. Selling for $17.50, the game dispensed five balls for a penny. 1936 Russ Letlow. In 1931 David Gottlieb's Baffle Ball became the first overnight hit of the coin-operated era.

Vince Workman - RB. The table was under glass and used Redgrave's plunger device to propel the ball into the upper playfield. Mike Wahle - G. By the 1930s, manufacturers were producing coin-operated versions of bagatelles, now known as "marble games" or "pin games". Fred "Fuzzy" Thurston - G. Redgrave's innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form. Darren Sharper - S. The balls became marbles and the wickets became small "pins".

Sterling Sharpe - WR. The game also shrunk in size and began to fit on top of a bar or counter. Ken Ruettgers - OL. This innovation made the game friendlier to players. Eugene Robinson - S. The player shot balls up the inclined playfield using this plunger, a device that remains in pinball to this day. Marco Rivera - G. In 1871 Redgrave was granted US Patent #115,357 for his "Improvements in Bagatelle" [1], which replaced the cue at the player's end of the table with a coiled spring and a plunger.

Andre Rison - WR. In 1869, a British inventor named Montegue Redgrave settled in America and manufactured bagatelle tables out of his factory in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Bryce Paup - LB. Bagatelle spread and became so popular in America as well that a political cartoon from 1863 even depicts President Abraham Lincoln playing a tabletop bagatelle game. Brian Noble - LB. Some French soldiers carried their favorite bagatelle tables with them to America while helping to fight the British in the American Revolutionary War. Steve McMichael - DT. The table game was dubbed Bagatelle by the King's brother and shortly after swept through France.

Max McGee - WR. The highlight of the party was a new table game featuring the slender table and cue sticks, which players used to shoot ivory balls up an inclined playfield. Larry McCarren - C. In 1777 a party was thrown in honor of the King and his wife at the Chateau D'Bagatelle, owned by the brother of the king. Tony Mandarich - T (bust). Players could ricochet the ball off the pins to achieve the harder scoring holes. Don Majkowski - QB. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so the pins eventually became fixed to the table and holes took the place of targets.

Dorsey Levens - RB. In France, during the reign of King Louis XIV, someone took a billiard table and narrowed it, placing the pins at one end of the table while making the player shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end. Mark Lee - CB. While some games took the wickets and balls of Croquet and turned them into the pockets of modern billiards, some tables became smaller and had the holes placed in strategic areas in the middle of the table. Jerry Kramer - G, K (author of Instant Replay). History records the existence of table-based games back to the 15th Century. Sean Jones - DE. The tabletop versions of these games eventually became the ancestor of the modern pinball machine.

Ezra Johnson - DT. Eventually the games led to indoor versions that could be played on a table, such as Billiards or Carrom, or on the floor of a pub like Bowling. Keith Jackson - TE. Croquet and Shuffleboard are examples of these games. Chris Jacke - K. Games played outdoors by rolling balls or stones on a grass course, such as Bocce or Bowls, eventually evolved into games played by hitting the balls with sticks and propelling them at targets. Cecil Isbell - QB. The origins of pinball are intertwined with the history of many other games.

Desmond Howard - WR/KR. . Johnny Holland - LB. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning extra balls and keeping balls in play as long as possible) and to earn free games (known as replays). Craig Hentrich - P. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Tim Harris - LB. Pinball is a type of coin-operated arcade game where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass case.

Brent Fullwood - RB. (Note: Happy Days was set in the 1950s, Nip-It was created in the 1970s) No surprise that the 1977 Bally game Eight Ball was strongly inspired by Happy Days. Antonio Freeman - WR. Happy Days' Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli often played a "Nip-It" pinball at Al's Diner. Boyd Dowler - WR. The 1970s TV game show The Magnificent Marble Machine featured a giant pinball machine. Santana Dotson - DT. The 1979 movie Tilt starring Brooke Shields as a young pinball wizard.

Lynn Dickey - QB. The 1973 movie Heavy Traffic, directed by Ralph Bakshi, uses pinball imagery as a metaphor for inner-city life. Mark Chmura - TE. First pinball game to overlay interactive video on to the mechanical playfield: Williams' Revenge From Mars (1999). Chuck Cecil - S. First pinball game to reward for a "death save": Data East's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1993). LeRoy Butler - S. First dot matrix scoring display: Data East's Checkpoint (1991).

Terrell Buckley - CB. First game to feature a "Wizard Mode" (high-scoring mode): Williams' Black Knight 2000 (1989). Mark Brunell - QB. First jackpot to carry over between games: Williams' High Speed (1986). "Gravedigger"). First game to feature a complete song/soundtrack: Williams' High Speed (1986). Gilbert Brown - DT (a.k.a. First game to auto-adjust replay scores based on game history: Williams' High Speed (1986).

Robert Brooks - WR. First three-level playfield: Gottlieb's Haunted House (1982) ^ . John Brockington - RB. First pinball game to combine mechanical pinball with a video game: Bally's Baby Pac-Man (1982). Tony Bennett - LB. First pinball game with reverse playfield: Gottlieb's Black Hole 1981. Edgar Bennett - RB. First pinball game with Magna-Save (player-controlled magnet to prevent outlane drains): Williams' Black Knight (1980).

John Anderson - LB. First pinball game with two-level playfield: Williams' Black Knight] (1980). Reggie White #92. First pinball game with "lane advance" (player control of top rollover lane lights): Williams' Firepower (1980). Ray Nitschke #66. First solid-state electronics multi-ball pinball game: Williams' Firepower (1980). Bart Starr #15. First skee-ball based pinball machine, "Andre The Giant" form factor: Hercules (1979).

Don Hutson #14. First talking pinball game: Williams' Gorgar (1979). Tony Canadeo #3. First pinball game to use a microprocessor: Mirco Games' Spirit of 76 (1975). 24 Willie Wood. First pinball game to use drop targets: Williams' Vagabond (1962). 92 Reggie White. First pinball game to award an extra ball: Gottlieb's Flipper (1960).

Emlen Tunnell. First pinball game with a moving target: Williams' Magic Clock (1960). 31 Jim Taylor. First multiball machine: Bally's Balls-a-Poppin' (1956). 3 Jan Stenerud. First four-player machine: Gottlieb's Super Jumbo (1954). 15 Bart Starr. First pinball game to use a ramp on playfield: Williams' Nine Sisters (1953).

51 Jim Ringo. First pinball game with score wheels: Williams' Army Navy (1953). 66 Ray Nitschke. First pinball game to use "jet bumpers" and locate the flippers at lower end of playfield: Williams' Saratoga (1948). 2 Mike Michalske. First pinball game to use flippers: Humpty Dumpty (1947). 24 Johnny (Blood) McNally. First full-size backglass on game: Dux (1937).

Vince Lombardi. First use of a bumper: Bally's Bumper (1936). 80 James Lofton. First use of a tilt mechanism: Williams' Advance (1932). 20 Earl (Curly) Lambeau. First commercially successful game: Gottlieb's Baffle Ball (1931). 2 Walt Kiesling. Visual PinMAME is a project that combines the Visual Pinball program with an emulator that uses ROM images from electronic pinball machines to both control the behavior of the simulation in Visual Pinball and to reproduce the sounds and score displays of the actual tables.

75 Henry Jordan. Visual Pinball, released by Randy Davis in 2001, is a simulation tool that not only allows a user to play simulations of popular real-world machines, but also allows them to create new tables (playfields). 14 Don Hutson. Both the PC and video game compilations had tables representing various time periods in Gottlieb's history. 36 Cal Hubbard. A different collection of simulated Gottlieb games was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2004. 5 Paul Hornung. While most pinball simulators feature tables created specifically for the computer, fans of real tables were rewarded for their patience when Microsoft released a collection of simulated Gottlieb tables for the PC.

30 Clarke Hinkle. Space Cadet was licensed to Microsoft from Maxis from the Maxis pinball software collection Full Tilt. 38 Arnie Herber. Microsoft Windows 98 brought the computerized pinball game into the workplace, by including 3D Pinball: Space Cadet with the operating system alongside the popular Solitaire card game. 83 Ted Hendricks. 1982's David's Midnight Magic for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit computer series was notable as being a fairly accurate presentation of Williams' Black Knight machine. 75 Forrest Gregg. There have been pinball programs released for all major home video game and computer systems.

Len Ford. In earlier machines, before a phenomenon often referred to as score inflation, had happened (causing almost all scores to end in 0) and scores could end in any integer, the match function was often a random integer from 0 to 9 that had to match the last digit in the score. 87 Willie Davis. Other non-numeric methods are sometimes used to award a match. 3 Tony Canadeo. As pinball scores on modern machines nearly always end in zero, the chances of this happening appear to be 1 in 10, but the operator can alter this probability. 26 Herb Adderly. Match: At the end of the game, if the last two digits of your score match a random digit followed by zero, you get an extra game.

Milwaukee County Stadium (1953-1994). Since the outlanes always lose the ball, having "special" there makes it worth shooting for them (and is pretty much the only time this is the case). Marquette Stadium (1952). Typically, some hard-to-get feature of the game will light the outlanes (the areas to the extreme left and right of the flippers) for special. Wisconsin State Fair Park (1934-1951). Special: A mechanism to get an extra game during play is usually called a "special". Borchert Field (1933-1935). Replay Score: Beat a specified score to get an extra game.

Lambeau Field (1957-present). "Bragging rights" associated with being on the high-score list are a powerful incentive for experienced players to master a new machine. City Stadium (Green Bay) (1925-1956). High score lists: if a player attains one of the highest scores ever (or the highest score on a given day) he is invited to add his initials to a displayed list of high-scorers on that particular machine. Bellevue Park (1923-1924). There are many and various time-related features in pinball. Hagemeister Park (1919-1922). Various timed rounds (modes): For example, if you hit a specific target three times within the next 20 seconds, you might score several tens of millions of points for it.

NFC North: 2002, 2003, 2004. For example, if you were on Ball 2, and you have an extra ball, the next ball (the extra one) will also be Ball 2 (it will not be Ball 3). NFC Central: 1972, 1995, 1996, 1997. Extra ball: If a player has earned this, when they lose a ball, they get another one to play immediately afterward, and the machine does not count the lost ball towards the limit of balls for that game. NFL Central: 1967. This "something else" could be as simple as hitting a ramp, or it could be a complicated sequence of targets. NFL West: 1936, 1938, 1939, 1944. Jackpot: Some targets on the playfield increase the scoring value of something else.

NFC: 1996, 1997. Multiball ends when all but one ball is lost down the bottom of the playfield, when regular play resumes. NFL Western: 1960, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967. Usually includes some kind of "jackpot" scoring. Super Bowl Championships (1)
1996 (XXXI). Difficult to handle. AFL-NFL Super Bowl Championships (2)
1966 (I), 1967 (II). Multiball: More than one ball in play at a time.

NFL Championships (11)
1929, 1930, 1931, 1936, 1939, 1944, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967. On some games, the balls are physically locked in place by solenoid-actuated gates, but many newer machines use "virtual" ball locks instead, in which the game merely keeps count of the number of locked balls and then auto-launches them from the main ball trough when it is time for them to be released. Green Bay Packers (1919-present). When you have locked the required number of balls, a multiball starts. NFC North (2002-present). Each time a ball goes in there, it is "locked" and a new ball appears at the plunger. NFC Central (1970-2001). Ball lock: Try to get two (or three or however many) balls into a specific hole or target.

National Football Conference (1970-present)