The next item to tackle was the running man.

1 running man (resized).jpg A Refinished Running man 3D Visualization

The running man is a clever 3D visualization of what is happening in the game. The unit is operated by a motor with a gearbox with a double shaft operating cams and switches on one end and the running men on the other.

2 DSC06215 (resized).JPG I removed the player caricatures including the runners and stored in a safe place early on in the restoration.

The motor when assembled would turn but it seemed to have too much resistance. I want to check the running man motor & gearbox and ensure it is clean and ready for another 25 years playing ball as it is the heart of the game. To get to the gearbox we need to remove all the wiring harness and switches. This gives us access to remove the cam wheel by hammering out the spring pin and this exposes the screws that hold the gearbox to the frame. Alas, as usual the cam wheel is 'frozen' to the shaft.

3 DSC06222 (resized).JPG I was initially stumped how to safely remove the cam wheel. Usually I can get them to turn a bit but this time not. Time for plan b.

4 DSC06227 (resized).JPG
Plan b was to drill out the visible gearbox 3/16” rivet flared ends and then punch out the rivets, remove the gearbox top housing exposing the gears etc and the main shaft, invert the housing so i can then 'drive the shaft out of the cam wheel with a punch .
5 DSC06229 (resized).JPG
It worked perfectly. Look at the old caked on grease and grime on the cogs.

6 DSC06230 (resized).JPG The main shaft was still frozen into the brass bearing so some gentle tapping was necessary to push it out of the housing.

It was easy to remove the gearbox exposed screws now and then separate the cam from the shaft in a vice with a soft hammer. On visual examination the brass bearings are not worn and they can be left in place.

Next step was to place all parts including the motor in the ultrasonic cleaner in a Zep orange solution or such. Do not use a degreaser cleaner like Zep Purple Cleaner as it is very bad for brass and aluminum. After a good clean and scrub I dry the parts and put in a tumbler with walnut shells and any metal polish that is a scratch remover for 24 hours to get them clean.
24 hours later…..

8 DSC06266 (resized).JPG We need to replace the new 3/16” rivets. They were originally brass as what Steve at PBR has in his replacement packs but I replace with copper tubing from a roll at Ace Hardware.

10 DSC06268 (resized).JPG The length of the rivet needs to be the same length of all the parts put back together, no more no less. So the housing and spacer is 1 9/16” long so I cut for rivets with a tube cutter. The ends need to be deburred inside and out. I use a dremel outside and an exacto knife inside the tube.

13 DSC06271 (resized).JPG New rivets. They are a little curvy but will work as the material is so soft. I gently tap the rivets into the housing and it all seems to work quite well.

14 DSC06274 (resized).JPG It’s important to take pictures so the washers go back as you found them. This motor has no spring on the rotor spindle so if you do what I am describing you can stop looking for it on a running man motor as you did not lose it. I had to find two spare running man motors and check there was not one installed, phew!

17 DSC06278 (resized).JPG Before I re-rivet, I clamp the motor together and make sure that the cogs all turn easily. We need to remove all misalignment.

18 DSC06279 (resized).JPG A bench test with a 50V motor and this baby is humming.

19 DSC06280 (resized).JPG I remove the clamps and use my rivet press to squeeze the rivets and we are done. One final bench test and this motor can go back in the game for another 25 years.

Nice job on the game it looks real good.

Possibly you could take a pic for me. I forgot how the lights went onto the wooden support for the "One bats while one pitches".

Glad you got the bat relay issue fixed. So it turned out to be a mechanical fix of electrical parts, sometimes it’s the case.

Edit: I am unsure looking at the large bat relay that the relay is meant to power off. If so the 110V to operate the bat lever and bat coil work be activated every time it is operated. It seems different to later games that don’t have the strikeout feature. The earlier 57 model logic is also way different with a huge 110volt coil that was changed to a 50/24 volt coil in later games.

I keep having to go away for work so getting the running man and the light box completed has been neglected. Thank goodness for before pictures, memory will not cut it. I like to spruce up the ‘players’ diamond and outfield. Time takes a toll on this part so a spruce up is always a nice touch.
1 Original running man (resized).jpg Typical ‘Players’ Diamond before restoration, you can clearly see the fade.

First job is to repaint the bottom with some grey paint. I usually get the little paint pot samples from Lowes as the need to repaint the back of play-fields happens no more than twice a year.
2 Running man field underside (resized).JPG Underside

It’s now time now to paint the new ‘green spring’ grass color replacing the old summer water parched 60 year old grass. Painting is straightforward using frisket and an exacto blade to prepare for painting or to make homemade stencils. Once the underside paint first step is dry the first step is to lightly sand the old paint to give the new paint some tooth. Follow by frisketing the area to be painted and with an exacto blade carefully cut on the paint lines the areas for painting. Wait to next day and frisket again the top and carefully cut around the ‘dirt’ diamond area. The following day frisket and repaint new white lines over the diamond etc. Straight after I spray auto clear to make it all pop.

This time however, I had the dreaded auto clear orange peel result, I did not expect that. I know I caused the issue, either I wiped the surface down with a contaminated painters rag when I used naphtha to remove the frisket glue. I had been waxing and polishing some parts so I may not have used a clean rag. Any way it is fixable with an eye drop and more clear. Just takes time.
3 Clear eyedrops fix (resized).JPG Orange peel – step 1 fix with clear from an eye dropper

I had added a heavy coat, so once the clear was eye dropped into all the areas we can sand with a 220 grit paper and in ten minutes the surface was ready for re-clearing. This time I sanded the following week with 800 grit, up to 2000 grit (15 minutes) and polished with Maguire’s Swirl Remover and Bobs your uncle.
4 Finished RM Playfield (resized).JPG Finished.

I have reassembled the running man and replaced the player caricatures and runners. If anyone wants to replace their men or spruce them up I am linking you to an earlier post where we had to remake the men. Scroll to post #71. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/williams-1963-major-league-restoration/page/2

The cardboard background in unique on this game. It is taller than other games and usually needs replacing due to tears and splits. I have added the original background back to the game but it’s very brittle. I have made scans and will fix the artwork and will have it remade. If anyone is interested in new copies of the crowd backdrop, sides and the 2 player banner let me know.
I use vinegar or something as gentle to get the dirt off. Just be slow and it all gets clean without damaging the surface.
5 SHORT STOP MARQUE Picture (resized).jpg Crowd Marque

6 Banner Sign cropped (resized).JPG Player Sign

I reinstalled the completed running man with the other restored components. Its starting to look like progress is being made.
7 Running Man fitted. (resized).JPG The last thing for this phase is replacing the perspex curved window. The original is 1/8” thick and needs driving into the slot. It did so but although I cleaned it well its 60 years old and detracts from the rest of the game. I looked around and found a PETG subsitute that will be brilliantly clear and only half as thick.
8 New Clear window (resized).JPG Old window being used as a pattern for the new PETG material (still with its protective covers). Ready for cutting.

The window thickness is important as the wood that retains this window is now brittle and less strong, no need to stress the wood further than needed. I had to replace a portion of the curved wood during the early restoration and did not want to do this again after painting. The new material being flexible and thinner slid in easily.
9 Fitted PETG window (resized).JPG This new piece of PETG is cheap to replace if it gets scratched and will last a long time in a home environment.

That's a good tip. I go thru packs of blades. Will try scalpel blades next.

Perfect pic's, thank you.

Lite Box Board

The lite and reels are mounted on a one piece board. This time I removed the light wiring harness to repaint the frame. There is a lot going on in this lite box and it will take some time to strip down, clean, polish and rebuild.

I used again a box store ‘white’ pot sample to paint the light reflecting side.
10 Lite Board New Paint Front (resized).JPG Front with a new light reflecting coat of paint

I sprayed the back yellow. This strip down gave me a good opportunity to clean the light holders before putting back in place and re-stapling. As this yellow has a matt finish I needed to clear coat with something.

Here is a question I should ask guys on the restore forum; what do they do with unused auto clear. I get an urge not to waste it and spray something….anything, example fence posts, my air receiver, the neighbor’s cat, something. Anyway, I usually resist and dispose of it into a waste 5 gallon container but as I was re-clearing the ‘players’ surface I gave the yellow coat on the light box frame a cool heavy coat of auto clear.
11 Lite Board New Paint back (resized).JPG Rear of Lite board repainted, clear coated and lite holders reinstalled.

The parts of the steppers score reels, relays etc were all cleaned, tumbled and polished. Now to reassemble. The wire harness was soaked (cleaned with a tooth brush) in a diluted ZEP orange cleaner overnight & rinsed. The water was blown out with an air compressor and left to totally dry for a day or so. I then clean the switch leafs and contacts with my dremel as best I can.

Parts laid out ready for reassembly. We will need our strip down pictures to put this all back together.
12 Parts to reassembled 1 (resized).JPG
13 Parts to reassembled 2 (resized).JPG I must admit that once I saw this bunch of parts, I lost some enthusiasm to start the work. I decided that getting in the Christmas mood was more important. Wow …but it’s just a lite box.

Spot on observation. I am concentrating on the PPG/OMNI 2 mixture and addition of the clear flattening agent. I pour some clear and then have to get the mix correct. I usually have a few things waiting for clear so I mix too much. I don't really spray cats... they are way too fast.

I have storage boxes of paints and have different storage results. The acrylics seem to survive storage for a while.

Regarding other paints like latex however, I find they go solid quite quickly along with the polyurethanes. That's why I am using sample pots now for the white and grey needs.

I think that I am too messy and get product around the top and they don't reseal every time when I hammer on the lids.

The playfield is next and the new backglass from Bgresto when it finally shows up.
1 Playfield (resized).JPG
The playfield is straight forward enough to clean and repaint the trim if needed. The laminate surface stands the test of time very well as long as there is a protective glass to protect it from falling objects. It has an interesting bat 3 part arrangement (C-5161) that was modified by Williams to a plastic bat a couple of years later on the 1960 Deluxe Official Baseball Game. The original C-5161 and C-5161-1 driver arm have a bat with a shaft similar to a flipper shaft and an assembly arm. This three piece arrangement (bat and shaft are two separate pieces) was replaced on the ‘Official Baseball’ C-5161-2 game with a more modern version three piece arrangement.
2 Bat Assembly (resized).JPG Bat Unit

The early C-5161 bat has a cotter pin on the shaft that allowed the bat and shaft to be fitted from the top of the playfield with a smaller hole in the playfield. This was simplified a year or so later to the final two piece arrangement (not changed since) and although not really necessary the cotter pin was nice engineering in my view.
3 Bat Lever Connection (resized).JPG So disassembly and restoration apart from the bat lever is simple. I remove all the metal parts and put in the tumbler, repaint any painted trim and clean the laminate playfield surface. Regarding the bat you need to drive out the pins to remove the bat from the spindle. I put some painters tape on the surface to protect the laminate when I used my hammer. The bat spindle will pullout from below when the linkage is removed.

The original scoring cards are in surprisingly good condition. Probably as they had clear protective covers.
4 Score Cards (resized).JPG Score Cards

After stripping the playfield the smaller metal parts were put in the tumbler for a day. The playfield was cleaned and polished with Gel-Gloss and the backs sanded and hand painted grey. The wiring harness was added to a container with a weak mix of Zep orange cleaner and water that seems to brighten the copper switches and is a good cleaner of the cloth wiring. After a day or so soaking I clean with a tooth brush and leave it to dry.

Finally we get to spruce up the trim in a nice red color and clear. I add some flattening agent to take the high gloss edge of the clear and it looks like new.

5 Refreshed Trim (resized).JPG So it’s already to put back together but I need to leave a few days for the paint and clear to harden some more.

Earlier I said I would remake the cardboard running man art. The cardboard on this game is in reasonable condition but it is held together by pasted on white paper or it would fall apart.
5a Running Man Art (resized).JPG Original Art on Game

If you have to remove the running man it is only time before it gets bent and torn. So I scanned the art and cleaned it up in photo shop. Fast signs can make it on a 0.060” plastic sheet and this is the way to go. It will last another 60 years easy. I will keep the original with the game along with the labels I change.
6 SHORT STOP MARQUE FINAL (resized).jpg
9 BANNER ART FINAL (resized).jpg
7 Banner Left Final (resized).jpg
8 Banner Right Final (resized).jpg

If anyone is interested in new running man marque art sides for their game let me know as it is unique to this game. Still haven’t found the game that the Pin Rescue guys in Australia made their crowd marque for as it is too short in height.

Dave,
Nice Game. The lower cabinet is not original so I say paint it. It originally had a hairy blue and white splatter. The blue was also lighter. The button you refer to is it the same as a metal one on the short stop? If so I may have one.

Let me look if I have another overlay, its yours for the cost from fast signs. If you apply a coat of clear and sand it down like I did the finish is the same as the laminate except its as new. so this is a worth while improvement.

Painting a cabinet is a personal choice, mine was flaking and had been touched up a long time ago. The game I got was unfortunately left in a barn the past 2 years and not protected in anyway from the elements in Nebraska so the cabinet paint was toast really.

Regarding the buttons look at this picture. On the right is the Williams button. On the left is a 7/8" Gottlieb button. Would the Gottlieb button work?

DSC06390 (resized).JPG

I have been toying with getting a bunch made. Guess I need to make a few to get a decent price. I would need people to show interest they would buy a multiple spring order. Steve at PBR might get them made if people showed interest but I think we may have to get these made as a pay it forward project.

Got your message. Overlay & button. Have for what I paid and postage.

I found another metal button that is 7/8" dia and want a final confirmation of which button you need.

DSC06391 (resized).JPG

Time to finish this game. The early baseball games have a rubber bat. People re tube the metal bat with black hose to various degrees of success. I had a large chuck missing in the back of mine and thought I would try a different idea.
1 Bat Rubber Spray (resized).JPG Spray on rubber!

I protected the metal connector end and sprayed multiple layers of rubber over a few hours. It bubbles a bit as it solidifies so not sure how porous it might be.
2 Bat Repair (resized).JPG Looks pretty ugly. Anyway I left to harden for a week.

It didn’t look any better but it was hard enough to work. I used my dremel with a sanding wheel and shaped it. It had a few air pockets that were uncovered by the sanding but quite small. I sprayed with Kyrlon clear and when dry it came out pretty good so I decided to use it on the game.
3 Bat Repaired 1 (resized).JPG Batting Side
4 Bat Repaired 2 (resized).JPGBackside

I took my marque photo shopped sides to the local fast signs that does my work and had them make new signs on a 0.060” acrylic white sheet. Here is the result. I had to cut the curved sides but with shears this took a couple of minutes. I recommend this approach to new signage on old games as the cardboard becomes dry and very brittle. I left the old signs in the back if the game as they are part of the history. I will also change out all game labels and signage to cleaner versions as they were removed so not to get damaged in the cleaning. The original labels are put in the back of the game also.
5 Crowd Marque as made. (resized).JPG New Running man Marque crowd.

If people need other games there is a vendor called Roundnose58 on eBay that sells a few versions for a reasonable price and they are very good.
6 Crowd marque in Game (resized).JPG Marque fitted in the game.

I had sent my backglass to Steve Azzam at Bgresto in August so time to contact to see where we are. I emailed him and got a reply the next day that it was being shipped and I would have in a couple of days. Goody!
7 New Glass Arrives (resized).JPG And here it is another seasonal gift.
8 Glass Back (resized).JPG Looks perfect.
9 Glass Front (resized).JPG Wow, that’s a great looking glass.
10 New Glass and Marque installed (resized).JPG And here it is in the game.

If anyone wants a picture of the game with the lights working let me know. It all looked perfect to me.

So the game is now ready for powering up however, as I bought this as a project I have never seen it work so it’s always a discovery process to get it going again. As usual it didn’t work straight away but with the schematic it didn’t take too long. Some of the switch contacts needed tweaking to make a better contact and as usual the score reels needed a little realigning. Otherwise in a couple of days they were all operating as designed. The game is fun and looks great.
11 Front Moulding (resized).JPG So all the cosmetics are complete and every switch and metal surface cleaned and polished. This is as faithful a restore as I can do. It’s still the original game but I remake and replace what is beyond repair and this included this time the power cable, cabinet paint, new back-glass, crowd marque and the moulding has an overlay. Oh also as I didn’t have any repainted red buttons on hand I used Scott Webb’s new aluminum anodized buttons and they look the bomb. The playfield glass is still the original plate glass probably and that will be replaced with safety glass in the New Year.
12 Front Cabinet (resized).JPG
13 Left Overview (resized).JPG Side View.
14 Right Overview (resized).JPG Final view and my next project just found this week in Chandler, Texas when picking up a project Williams Big Daddy game.

Here is the back-glass lighting effect. Never saw the original with the game working, it seems very good.
15 Glass with lights Off (resized).JPG Bgresto Back Glass

I played the game with my wife this afternoon and the buzzer is real noisy and long. May have to silence it. The buzzer and the 2nd batter up lights flash to signal to the second player it’s their turn to bat.

That's three early baseball restoration write ups in the bag from 58 thru 63. Think that with this 2 player example I am satisfied for a while. The game is quite eye catching and is fun to play.

The only thing holding these games back is the pitcher spring being unavailable currently. I will research that. The spring is critical to providing the correct power to the ball pitch. Most now seem too under powered and this can detract from the fun of the game. It's the same as worn flippers.

I will contact a spring company and see what they will cost and how many.

All, I have had the spring remade and have a number for resale.
See my thread. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/williams-pitch-unit-springs-now-available#post-4262127 for availability.