Lansing Pinball League

We had our second league night of the season on January 28, which finished our bank rotation between the first two banks (known to me and Joseph and probably no one else as “Ophiuchus” and “Lepus”). Due to an issue with Batman ’66, we had to switch in Ghostbusters for a backup game, which I don’t think very many people were excited about. When a game switch happens midway through a rotation, we don’t have the people who played the bank during the previous league night replay, since that would be impractical. Instead, we have two separate rankings on the games, each with their own 100/99/98 scores. This does result in the weirdness that for that given night the number of total points is inflated since there are two 100s, two 99s, etc., but I decided it was the least bad way to deal with it.

The league seems to be growing again as we had more new new players: Darien (Linda’s neighbor, if I’ve got this right), who has played pinball a long time but never in competition; Luc, whom I didn’t get to talk to very much yet; and mother-daughter combo Kim and Payton. Some of the new players were curious about Peter’s streaming rig, which made another appearance tonight, and I was excited to explain to them that people stream pinball on Twitch.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Godzilla, so Peter set the streaming rig up on that. The B division was on Monster Bash. Smackdown champion Jason asked if he could wear what he called my “bunny hat” for the photo, meaning the hat that we draw numbers out of for bank assignments at the start of each league night, a tradition dating back to the Matt days. I said sure, but it’s a deer hat, to which he responded that he just assumed it would be a bunny since it was mine. I do own multiple bunny hats (as well as a bunny hoodie and a bunny-hooded cape) but, as I explained, the hat was actually an impulse buy at a gas station somewhere up north many years ago. It was either in Grayling or Gaylord, I forget which – somewhere it made sense to be selling a deer camp souvenir. I managed to prevail in the B division on Monster Bash to join my hat in the photo.

After the first two weeks, the standings aren’t meaningful yet (since everyone drops the two lowest nights), but the final scores for the bank rotation are complete, at least. Right now our champ on Bank 1, Ophiuchus (“the Snake Bearer”), is Danny. Second place belongs to Josh and third to Tim. The winner of Bank 2, Lepus (“The Hare”), is also Danny, but this time Tim has second and Derik has third.

We’re less than a day away from our next league meeting. Peter will surely bring his rig again and we’ll have the usual fun with our Smackdown side tournament, so come early to put some games in! See you all soon!

Season 21 got off to an exciting start on January 14. The biggest development was that Peter brought the new streaming rig he had built. That’s right, after 11 years of existence*, LPL has joined the big league! It had its soft launch during the previous week’s Lightning Flippers meet, but we had trouble keeping the Internet connection live that time. This time Peter dropped the quality so we were able to stream all night, dividing time between The Beatles (one of the games in bank Lepus) and Cactus Canyon (the Smackdown game).

Another source of excitement was the return of previous league members Mark C., Nick, and Todd, who were absent last season. Now if only Pat would come back, since people keep asking me about him and I don’t know where he disappeared to.

Friend of the league Christy officially joined the league this season. We also were joined by new player Dar, who I believe is a friend of Nathan.

Bank 1 (Ophiuchus) started off the same way as last season, with Black Knight: Sword of Rage having a malfunction (I don’t remember what it was last time, but this time it was the catapult giving unearned multiballs) and being switched out. The backup game chosen from Bank 7 was Venom. Unfortunately this did force a couple of groups to replay their league game, leading to a rather late ending.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was on Cactus Canyon. This was my first time trying out Matchplay as a way of running the Smackdown tournament, which allows me to more quickly see who is qualified for A and B division. As it happens, it also makes for a better streaming display, so Peter was happy. Our Smackdown winner was Jason, and the B division went to Joseph.

Prior to league I made another attempt to get my button maker to press buttons to give out and it was once again misfiring, which we can’t figure out the source of, since it’s not really something with working parts that can go wrong. Some investigation seems to suggest it might be the printer paper I’m using so I’m going to experiment with that. Joseph and I have both been very busy and much of our pinball time has been devoted to getting ready for and then running the women’s state tournament, so I hope I’ll have more time to work on league stuff now that it’s over. That’s also what has put Joseph behind on getting the league scores entered.

*To the best of my knowledge, the Lansing Pinball League is the third oldest league in the state, preceded only by the Grand Rapids Pinball League and Marvin’s Pinball League. There are other leagues that pre-date it, but they are no longer in existence.