Baseball is one of the three popular American games, the other two being basketball and American football. Baseball is not as well represented as the other two games in online slots. This article reviews two baseball themed slot machines. One of them is a very early release and the other one fairly recent. The comparison also shows how the online slots have evolved over the years.

The early slot game is Hot Shot from Microgaming. Once upon a time Microgaming catered to players from the United States and there are a number of online slots in its portfolio targeted to this market. Hot Shot is one of them. This is a 9-payline slot game with the symbols crafted in a bold and colorful fashion. There are a large number of symbols offering line payouts. The Home Run logo offers the highest line payout of 1,000 coins when five symbols appear in an active payline. The other thematic symbols include Strike logo, batter, pitcher and cap. The customary high value card symbols have been replaced by fast food items that are sold at baseball games. These include hot dog, fries, popcorn, candy and coffee. The ball is the wild symbol and the trophy is the scatter symbol, which offers scatter payouts. Hot Shot has no animations or gaming features like free spins and bonus games. It can be played at Microgaming online casinos like All Slots, Platinum Play and Royal Vegas.

Realtime Gaming is one software provider that has continued to service the American market through the thick of the legal issues. The baseball themed online slot in its portfolio titled Golden Glove is rich in features. The symbols are similar to the Microgaming baseball themed slot, but this is to be expected. The symbols include the keeper, female spectator, male spectator, trophy, helmet, cap, baseball, popcorn and hot dog. The batter is the wild symbol. It appears only on reel 3. But is makes up for this by substituting for the scatter symbol as well and by doubling all payouts when it helps make a winning combination. This symbol has a fantastic animation of striking the ball. The Golden Glove is the scatter symbol and awards scatter payouts.

One of the features that have helped to popularize the Golden Glove slot game is the Home Run feature. It is activated when three or more Golden Glove symbols appear left to right or right to left and 9 free spins are awarded to the player. During the Home Run feature the letters H, I and T may appear on reels 2, 3 and 4 respectively. A scattered HIT will award up to four base hits. For each run scored in these base hits a prize of twice the triggering bet will be awarded and one game will be accumulated towards the Grand Slam feature. All payouts in the free spins other than the run bonus are doubled. The Grand Slam free games are played after the Home Run feature is completed. The payouts in these free games are multiplied by 5. Each run scored in the Grand Slam feature awards up to 100 times the triggering bet. Golden Glove also incorporates a randomly triggered progressive jackpot. Golden Glove can be played at Realtime Gaming online casinos like Club World, Cherry Red and Slots Jungle.