(FORTUNE Magazine) – Mattel Football, which the company claims is the first handheld electronic game, was a big hit in the '70s. But the kinda lame technology--which doomed it by the mid-1980s--makes it all the more fun now. Staffers wanted it back. "We went to the archives," says vice president Phil Jackson. "Employees had appropriated all our copies." After buying one for $300 on eBay, Mattel recreated it--backward technology and all--and released it last year as Mattel Classic Football. (It retails for $15, as opposed to $40 in 1977.) People cheered. Now comes equally addictive Mattel Classic Baseball (above). Says Jackson of the games' appeal: "They give dads a fighting chance."