[Butch7999]

We answered Dynarl in a hurry, and included one large error in doing so, so we're adding to and amending our previous post:

We wish we could tell you more about both The Professional Player and The Pitcher's Battle, but there's a fair amount of mystery
surrounding both games and unfortunately we don't own a example of either of them.

The Pitcher's Battle is a fairly tough acquisition itself, but The Professional Player probably qualifies as "rare"
-- we haven't seen an example offered for sale or at auction in almost ten years.

The mystery is how two virtually identical games are credited to two different names, and which one came first.
Guetschoff filed an application for a design patent (different than what most people think of, which is a "utility patent")
in late 1934 and was granted the patent 30 July 1935 (the design is pretty much exactly what you have with The Professional Player).
However, the back of the Guetschoff game is stamped only "pat. appld. for," while it's Kollmorgen's The Pitcher's Battle
that sports the 30 July 1935 patent date on its playing board. Thanks for the view of the game's backside, by the way,
which gives us info we didn't have previously.

Kollmorgen's nephew (so he claimed, and we believe he was being honest) showed up on our Baseball Games forum
several years ago offering just a few insights on the game -- supposedly thousands were sold at the J L Hudson department store
in Detroit, and Kollmorgen allegedly had other major league players besides Bridges lined up to endorse the game in the late 1930s,
but some delays and the outbreak of WWII killed further production. Kollmorgen was still alive when his nephew posted at our forum,
but was in no mental state to answer questions we wished relayed to him, and he died shortly thereafter.

We have a photo of the directions for The Pitcher's Battle, which are presumably identical for The Professional Player.
The game uses one large marble (presumably a "shooter") and nine standard marbles. We must correct ourselves
regarding the purpose of the square block on the Guetschoff game and the wooden cross on the Kollmorgen game --
both rotate, not to put the ball in or out of play, but merely to indicate where the baserunners are.