Lansing Pinball League

Our league night of 4/25 was the third of the season, so we were starting a new two-bank rotation, this time between banks 3 (Poseidon) and 4 (Hermes). Almost all of the new players we’ve had an influx of this season have continued coming back, and we got another new player, Devon. Devon has been playing a long time, but has never played in a competitive format before and decided to try it out. I made everyone promise to be nice to the new guy but as luck would have it, he got sorted into my group so I could explain everything to him. He seemed to have a good time and we’re happy to have him in the league. He also debuted by taking fifth in the night’s standings for his bank, not bad for a first outing. (Of course, only half of everyone has played the bank so far, but still, not bad at all.) And did I get some amazing pictures of him and the other new players to share with you? Did I hell. Once again I suddenly realized around the time the Smackdown was going on that I hadn’t taken any pictures all night.

The league has gotten so big that the process of drawing bank assignments from the hat has gotten quite protracted. It’s a long league tradition, going back to a knit hat that Matt used to use, but I have started wondering if we should switch to just assigning the groups electronically. I mentioned this out loud when we were drawing banks and added, “but it will make Joseph sad.” I had predicted that correctly since Joseph gave a heartfelt “aww” of disappointment. So, we’ll see what will win, expedience or tradition.

There had been speculation that we might have our Foo Fighters in by this time and could use it as the Smackdown game, but as it happened it arrived the day after league. Instead, we’ll be using it tonight. Last time the random number generator decreed we would play Cactus Canyon instead. I always draw the B division game at random for the games in the vicinity of the A division game. Joseph likes to kid with me that the random draw if the game is in the area at the top of the stairs is always Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To his amusement he was right this time. (It isn’t always TMNT, but it does seem to happen disproportionately.) Tim won the main Smackdown tournament and I somehow won the B division on TMNT, a game I actively dislike.

I had made buttons using the button press that I’m so proud of, and I stuck the champ’s button on Tim using the tape that Joseph had stuck it to the game backglass with, and declared that Tim was now the Sheriff. It was maybe ten minutes later that they suddenly ran back up to me and said “I just noticed, it says 4/11 on it!” I had forgotten to change the date on my template from the previous league night. And I had made such a cute cactus drawing on it too. I promised to remake it for next time which I still plan to make good on, right after I’m done writing this league report.

The standings aren’t very meaningful with the banks only half-completed, but right now the early returns have Danny C. at the top of the league (surprise?) with Mike in second and Tim in third. Tonight will finish out the first half of the qualifying season. I hope to see you all there!

April 11 saw the league finishing up a two-bank rotation of Athena and Hera (I picked those names and I’m going to use them damn it). We also had the return of most of the new members who swelled the league’s ranks for our first league night, meaning we didn’t scare (most of) them off, as well as having another new member join. Our new member is named Mark (H.), so I told him he was going to have to be “Other Mark” since we already have a Mark (C.). We also had the return of a couple of past members who had been absent several seasons, Jim J. and Jimmy R.

Other Mark came to us all the way from Traverse City, believe it or not, and turns out to have been an employee at Pinball Pete’s in Ann Arbor back in the day. He and Derik got to reminiscing about the old days at Pete’s and I chimed in a little bit with my recollection of when there was a Pete’s location on Packard (I had a friend who lived in some apartments almost across the street).

The Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Guns N’ Roses which somehow I won. Really, I’m in such disbelief that Joseph just now had to tell me that I won, and I didn’t believe him until he pointed out the champion button that was still sitting on the dining table. Jason won the Undercard division along with also taking home a replacement trophy from his Zen championship in Season 16. The trophy shop had accidentally given us the wrong size trophies and while I didn’t really care that much, when they found out they felt bad and made us replacements. That’s what Jason is holding in his Smackdown winner’s circle photos.

This was our last meeting before the big Michigan event of the year, Pinball at the Zoo. A lot of people were planning to attend and some of us had designs on coming home from PATZ with trophies. Unfortunately despite being the #2 seed in Women’s and getting to drive the bus in semi-finals, I drove the bus straight off a cliff, so I had to rely on hometown favorite Derik to bring glory to the league. Derik made it to finals in the main tournament and took 4th. Although he didn’t get the win we were hoping for, he did garner a huge crowd reaction with a glorious Lazarus ball on Flash Gordon that he not only lifted out of the drink successfully but sent straight up the ramp!

Our next meeting is in (checks watch) a little over an hour so I hope to see you all soon!

The Capital Crushers descended on The Avenue Cafe on March 28 to kick off the eighteenth – you read that right – season of the Lansing Pinball League. It was our best-attended night in a long time as 25 people played, necessitating the addition of a second bank. This was mainly due to a sudden influx of enthusiastic new players who brought great energy with them: Ethan, Cyndi, Jon, Adam, Ann-Marie, Grant, Randall, Ro, and Ted. We did our usual drawing from a hat but fortunately avoided having a group entirely made up of new players (barely, since Joseph ended up steering a group of three newcomers). We also had the reappearance of a couple of off-and-on regulars who weren’t able to make it last season, Jason “Mags,” Shylia, and Brian K.

I was in a group with Cyndi, who is very new to pinball, and after making sure she was OK with receiving advice, I showed her how to make the Tower skill shot on Lord of the Rings and then immediately shoot the ring to start a mode. I was thrilled and proud when she proceeded to execute both elements perfectly on her first try, because at heart I’m a teacher even when I’m not at school. Cyndi, Linda, Josh, and I made for a fun and collegial group.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown on Indiana Jones had the most players I can remember, possibly a record turnout, meaning that not everyone qualified to play finals. Several people near the bubble hung around watching anxiously as the last games were played. The final game as I rung the bell to end qualifying ended up catapulting both Cyndi and Linda into qualifying and sadly sending Jason and Jon home.

I have a button maker now, and finally got around to making a template for giving out buttons to Smackdown winners which they can wear for bragging rights. Tim put theirs on right away and Joseph… well, for some unaccountable reason he decided to do something silly with his. Who would have guessed?

I hope to see you all shortly at our second league night (and don’t forget about the ladies’ Lightning Flippers event next week)!

The last day of February was also the last night for the regular league season. The final seeds for the playoffs, and even more importantly who would make it into A division, was decided on this night. It promised to be a long night since some people needed to make up Star Trek (it had been taken out for phantom scoring the previous league night) and everyone would have to play the same bank, since we started the last two-bank rotation on an even-numbered night.

Surprisingly, even though we did have four groups playing the same bank for the first time in a while, it didn’t end up being too long. A total of 16 people played, two of them (Biff and Danny) being latecomers who went around on their own after league was mostly over. There were a couple of backups, but it wasn’t the really late night I was bracing myself for. One notable absence was Jake. He and Sam usually come together from Grand Rapids, but Sam came on his own. According to Sam, Jake said he would be in B division no matter what transpired so he might as well just see us at finals. I asked him if that meant that he loved us more than Jake did, since we aren’t good enough for Jake to just hang out with if A division isn’t on the table. He started saying something about Jake having a family. Pffft, excuses, excuses.

Also missing was reigning league champion Mike, who was feeling under the weather. He missed three nights this season and still managed to make A division, though he will surely miss having a first-round bye this time. Those will go to #1 seed Derik and #2 seed Danny.

Probably the biggest heartbreak when the dust settled was that Nate missed A division by 1 point. On the other hand, one could equally say that the happiest story of the night was that Biff made A division by 1 point. It reminds me of one of my favorite Peanuts comics. It turns out, though, that Sam is probably going to miss league finals, which will move Nate up into A division after all. I’m sure Nate is very happy that Sam is sick! Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on TRON. It was one of our least popular Smackdowns, with only six people entering scores. Mark played his first Smackdown A division finals against Tim, me, and Joseph. Unsurprisingly, Tim won, although I had a good shot at it and ended in 2nd. Bryan and Linda played off for the B division on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with the victory going to Bryan. I don’t know why the dice roll always picks TMNT when we’re doing a Smackdown at the top of the stairs.

That concludes Season 17 except for finals tomorrow, and Super-Ball XVII (Zen Night), which will be in a week. In 24 hours we… actually won’t know yet who won Season 17, I am going to bet. But at least we’ll be getting close. I hope.

Our first meeting of 2023 on 1/10 was our sixth of the season and we ended up having a big enough crowd to need to split into two banks. Unfortunately, this does mean that league night #8 will have to be one bank no matter how big of a crowd we have, but we’ll make do.

Unfortunately, The Addams Family kept having issues, most critically resetting, so it had to be taken out of commission after almost everyone in one bank had played it already. Josh was looking over my shoulder as I was checking on the upcoming banks to find a backup game and pointed out that something was wrong with them as Bank 8 was purported to contain South Park and FunHouse, which obviously we don’t have. I briefly panicked, thinking that I had accidentally given out the editor link in order for some prankster to do that (putting in one of my least favorite games and my very favorite game), then realized that Joseph had done it for a placeholder because Bank 8 has two empty spaces until we vote on what to put in it.

We had a visit from Kristen G., who played in the league years ago before moving away, and was in town for work. She didn’t play in league (there’s really no point in playing one night) but she did play in the Tuesday Night Smackdown game on 007 and got second place. This must have been her first official tournament at The Avenue in quite a while. Allen also played in the A division of the Smackdown, getting fourth. Sadly, this will be his last official appearance at the Avenue for some time.

Although this wasn’t known yet at the time, it turns out that the night marked Allen’s exit from the league. Over state finals weekend he let me know that his work in Michigan has unexpectedly ended early, allowing him to return back home to Texas and get to live with his family again. Previously his plan was to move back in May. While I recognize that this is good news for him, I was very sad to learn that he wouldn’t be able to finish the league season after all. State finals served as his last big hurrah as a Michigan player (for now), and he went out with style by taking 3rd place. He wanted me to let everyone in the league know how much it has meant to him to have a second family in Michigan, which is what made it bearable for him to stay away from his first family so long.

The night ended with Tuesday Night Smackdown as usual, and as mentioned, the A division played on our newest game, 007. I somehow failed to take any pictures of the winners this time, probably in part because my usual league camera (“Little Points”) had just gone out of commission. Mike won on 007 and in the B division, I had a really wild come from behind on ball 3, player 4 of Game of Thrones for the win. I started the last ball with fewer than a million points, needed to get past 300 million some, and finished well over 400 million thanks to one good multiball.