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Butch & Co.Steve, no disrespect intended! We were just adding more information than was of any real use, in lieu of having an actual answer for Richard. 
A cursory review of our files kind of rules out both of our off-the-cuff guesses, Gotham and Tudor. It's that flippy trap-door feature at home plate that's throwing us. None of the Gotham or Tudor games we know of (and we think we've catalogued all of 'em) have such a gizmo. Nor do any of several other big action games that came to mind -- not Hank Aaron Baseball Game by Ideal (1973), nor SnapAction Baseball by Shelcore (1980s), nor slightly older big action games like Mag-Powr Baseball, Hall a' Fame Baseball Game, Strike 3 by Carl Hubbell, Jackie Robinson Baseball Game!, nor even Wolverine's Pennant Winner.
The other features Richard's friend listed are common to several Gotham and Tudor games, but none of those games have all of those features. We'd have guessed he may have conflated a couple of different games from his youthful recollections, but Dave and Anthony's memories seem to corroborate the idea that it's all just one game. We're probably overlooking some obvious candidate, which would be all too typical of us.
By the way, Tudor's Tru-Action Electric Football is still in production after almost sixty years, now made by Miggle Toy, and avidly played and collected (the Miggle website has links to tournaments and player/collector forums). With some dexterous adjustments, you really can impose some control over which way your players go on the vibrating metal field. Sometimes.
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