Toy Story

Computer games based on Pong-era technology are marketed as classic and retro, but Old Century Baseball is a genuine throwback: a wooden, pinball-style contraption much like the arcade games popular in the 1950s. The game—in which players flip a wooden bat to drive a pinball up ramps into slots marked anything from HOME RUN to OUT—appeared at the International Toy Fair last February and is on pace to sell more than 50,000 units by the end of 2002. (It retails for $129.99.) FamilyFun magazine named it a finalist for Toy of the Year. "We don't have anything against technology," says Steve Edmiston, a VP at Old Century Classics, the game's maker. "But our game forces you to unplug and talk and laugh." Edmiston and his partners, including former NFL receiver Mark Pattison, pitch the game as a toy and a home-decor item; you can buy it at venues ranging from Nordstrom to Baseball's Hall of Fame. "It looks like it's been around for a long time," says Edmiston, "and there's something comforting about that. Every time we came up with something clever for it, we got rid of it. We wanted people to see the springs." He assures us he won't switch to aluminum bats.