Lansing Pinball League

Season 18 came to a close on July 25 with a hot, sweaty night of playoffs at The Avenue Cafe. Danny C. ultimately retained his title as league champion after a battle with Jason. Returning B division champion Dan N. also repeated his victory, this time in a final battle against league newcomer Devon. Receiving third place trophies were Pat in A division and Bryan J. in B division.

This was our largest ever final tournament because the league reached the largest ever membership. We had 28 qualified players, which according to the league rules we were using at the time meant that A division would be a 14-person double-elimination tournament. This beat our previous record of a 12-person finals. That one was a very long tournament that barely finished before last call, so I arrived at the Avenue full of trepidation that the tournament would outlast the bar’s open hours and that we would have to have the two finalists meet on an additional day. Fortunately, that did not happen, but it was a real fear that loomed over me throughout the night.

It didn’t help that I held up my own A division matches by having to make an unusual number of rulings and also sort things out when players entered themselves into the wrong branch of the second-chance bracket.

We did have a Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament, for which we used The Simpsons Pinball Party, chosen because it was excluded from the main tournament due to wonkiness. Since people could not play in Smackdown finals if they were still playing in the main tournament, we had few people available to play when it was time. As a result, Ethan received the B division win by default, which he was very excited about. Mark C. won the A division, which he said was his first pinball tournament win. As it happens, my first ever tournament win was also a Smackdown tournament during a finals night a few seasons ago.

It was a night of upsets. In A division, #12 seed Ethan defeated #5 seed Derik in the first round of the tournament; #7 Pat defeated #2 Tim in the winner bracket and then #4 Josh in the second-chance bracket; and #9 Heather (that’s me) defeated #2 Tim and #6 Mike (who was undervalued due to missing a couple of league nights) both in the second-chance bracket. Meanwhile in B division, second place went to dark horse Devon over league stalwart Bryan J.

During the finals in B division, I asked Devon which match he was on with Dan. I meant whether they were in their first or second of the two matches, since if the person in the second-chance bracket wins, they have to then win a second match against the person who had been in the winner bracket. Devon said “this is it, this is for the tournament” but I wasn’t sure he had understood me correctly so I asked Dan who clarified that they were only in the first match. Devon, who was in the second-chance bracket, was heading toward winning his game which would win him the match, and I said to Dan, “I think Devon doesn’t realize he is going to have to beat you a second time.” Indeed I was right. When the game finished I explained that they would now have another round and Devon exclaimed, “We have to play again?”

The final match in A division started around midnight and pitted Danny against Jason, with Danny having the better seed. Danny chose Willy Wonka, which he won. Choice then went to Jason, who chose The Munsters and won. Choice went back to Danny and he chose Stranger Things. I have to admit that at this stage I had very mixed emotions. I always find it more exciting when finals goes into a second match, and I also kind of wanted to see a new league champion (Jason has never won the season), but part of me also really wanted Danny to win so that the tournament would be over before they started kicking people out. Danny did win that final game on Stranger Things and it was a few minutes before 1 am when I had him and Jason line up for photos. A single bar patron, who had gotten out of the way for the photo and was standing nearby, clapped. I then packed up my stuff and took Joseph’s car home, as he had long since walked home to go to bed in order to be rested for work the next day.

That wraps up Season 18, except for our traditional post-season split flipper or “Zen” tournament tonight, Super-Ball XVIII. Season 19 will begin on August 22.

The final results for Season 18 are as follows:

1. Danny C.
2. Jason
3. Pat
4. Josh
5. Joseph
6. Heather
7. Mike
8. Jimmy R.
9. Tim
10. Derik
11. Biff
12. Ethan
13. Donny
14. Ted
15. Dan N.
16. Devon
17. Bryan
18. Shylia
19. Mark
20. Jim J.
21. Grant
22. Adam
23. Travis
24. Ro
25. Linda
26. Ann-Marie
27. Cyndi
28. Mark H.

Our league night on July 11 was the final night of qualifying for Season 18. As we got ready to send people to their respective banks, Ted got confused because he remembered playing bank “A” last time and we gave him an A group again this time. He pointed this out as he thought it was a mistake. Joseph started to explain that he switches which bank is “A” so people keep the same letter, but Adam cut in first to give Ted a hard time: “How many league nights have you been to now, and you don’t know how this works?” or something along those lines.

Prior to the start of league play, Joseph, Ethan, Cyndi, and I played a game on The Munsters, the Tuesday Night Smackdown game of the night. Ethan had a really great game on it that he was very pleased with (around 27 million) and then Joseph decided to crush him by completing blowing it up to the tune of around 88.

At one point during the night, I had someone come over to ask me what to do because they forgot to put a fourth player on Guns N’ Roses, then when they tried to punch one in at the last minute after player three finished ball one, it went to player one ball two, but it did now show a fourth player. When they described this I was pretty sure I knew what happened. I did not actually know this was possible, but I guessed that it would allow you to add a new player at any time rather than just during Ball One, and then would just give them three balls to play no matter what ball everyone else was on at the time. This was consistent with the strange way that extra balls work on Jersey Jack games (they add them to the end of the game rather than after the ball you earned them on). As I walked over I said “This is a weird effect of how how Jersey Jack games handle balls.” Ethan replied “I’m glad we’re discussing how to handle balls.” Anyway, it turned out I was right and it just added the player’s balls to the end of the game the same way it handles extra balls. Thanks for always confusing tournament play, Jersey Jack.

My group consisted of me, Joseph, Tim, and briefly Harpy. Harpy has played in a Lightning Flippers tournament before and asked to play in whatever we had going on. I explained that it would not be possible to qualify for finals at this point but she was OK with that so I added her to our group. Unfortunately she then had something unexpectedly come up and had to leave after only playing two games with us.

When I went to play Rush, I dialed in the song I always play (“Free Will,” the one that seems most appropriate to my academic area) and Joseph said “I knew you were going to do that.” I raised a hand behind me to give Joseph a single finger salute in reply, getting a deadpan “Wow” out of Tim.

Ethan ended up getting revenge against Joseph for crushing his Munsters game in qualifying by winning the Tuesday Night Smackdown. The B division played Avengers and somehow I managed to win that one!

After the dust settled (the “dust” being Joseph putting the scores in hastily before bedtime) Danny C. had the top qualifying position for Season 18 with a pretty healthy 27 point margin over second seed Tim. Assuming everyone attends what will be a really epic finals night, Ted was the last person to make it over the cut into A division, leaving Dan N. to be top seed in B.

June 27 was the beginning of the end of the qualifying season, since we started the final rotation of banks 7 and 8. Bank 8 is always a catch-all of whatever games are left to play, including ones added to the venue during the season. This time there was only one remainder slot, for which the league voted for a repeat game. The winner, by far, of the Facebook poll was Rush, prompting my mom to comment, “I don’t know what Rush is, but it seems popular.” Bank 8 also included our nearly brand new game, Foo Fighters, testing whether people had gotten a feel for the rules yet.

One advantage of the long league season is that we are able to play each game at least once over the course of qualifying… usually. This time we had very bad luck with AC/DC. It had already been taken out of a previous bank for a malfunction, and swapped into Bank 7 instead. Unfortunately it went down again and therefore won’t be played at all this season, except in finals. On the up side, it happened during the first night of a rotation, which is much easier to deal with, and after only one group had finished playing it. On the down side, my group was the one who had already played, and both Ted and I had a really good game that we had to scratch. Such is pinball.

Danny C. was wearing a totally awesome shirt with famed pinball medic Dr. Dude on it. I was admiring it because I’m kind of a fan of that game, and Derik made sure to point out that it was an original Dr. Dude shirt from when the game was new.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Godzilla. Joseph always writes a quip on the rules sheet and this time it was “I wonder if Dan C. will play?” Indeed he did. As league was getting close to wrapping up, which would mean calling time on Godzilla qualifying, Danny came over to ask me if people could also qualify on downstairs Godzilla as well as the originally assigned upstairs Godzilla (“mezza-Godzilla”). I told him that I would allow that if he would give me his shirt. He started to explain that it was a gift so he couldn’t give it away but I made sure to point out that of course I was kidding. I consulted with assistant TD Joseph for a second opinion and we decided together that yes, since they were virtually the same game, we could allow qualifying on downstairs Godzilla. I was only halfway through shouting this announcement when I saw Danny make tracks downstairs.

Unsurprisingly, Danny ended up with by far the highest qualifying score on Godzilla with over a billion points, and he also went on to win the Smackdown contest. I went to draw a B division game from the games nearby and Joseph immediately said it would be Turtles. It has been noted in the past that Turtles has come up a disproportionate number of times when I’ve had to draw a game from that cluster. This time, however, the B game was The Addams Family. I asked Joseph for his choice of position and he said “I’ll go second on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and kept repeating this as I tried to ascertain that he really wanted to go second on The Addams Family. I finally just wrote him down as second. He went on to win The Addams Family, not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Tonight will wrap up the qualifying season and determine who will make it to A division finals, who will play B, and what the seeds for finals will be. Joseph and I are back from our vacation in California, rested and ready (but not tanned thanks to SPF 70) and we hope to see you all soon!

Our most recent league night closed out the third quarter of the season as everyone finished playing either Bank 5 or 6. (Except for one person; more on that in a bit.) We also had a Tuesday Night Smackdown bout on one of the league’s classic games, Medieval Madness. While it’s not the same physical game as the one that the league started with, Medieval Madness was one of only four titles in the bar when the league started. The others were Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, and Johnny Mnemonic. Tales of the Arabian Nights was the next one added soon after. All were located in the alcove. While sadly, Johnny has “gone up the middle” straight out of the venue long ago, the others have never left. Except, that is, for Medieval Madness, which was replaced by a version that has never been quite as friendly to me. That’s your league history lesson for today.

Now you’ve learned something, just like I learned something at our last league meeting: someone reads my league reports another than Joseph. Multiple someones, even. Dan N. said, “You made me Google ‘James Blish’.” I had written that May 23 “wasn’t just James Blish’s birthday,” a joke meant entirely for Joseph, as James Blish is one of his favorite science fiction writers. Ethan also declared that he was “the Johnny Appleseed of cheer,” which I had called him in last league night’s report. I was a little embarrassed and admitted I hadn’t actually realized anyone besides Joseph was actually reading my league reports. Devon responded that he had screenshotted the first league report after he joined and told his friends he made the news. I explained that since they didn’t go up until right before league most weeks I figured that made it less likely people actually looked at them. And also that Mike usually gives me guff for how late I post them. A running joke is for him to comment that they’re early if I post them the night before the next league night instead of the day of. (Once upon a time I actually tried to get them up within a week, but probably no one alive remembers that far back.) A couple of people, I think it may have been Devon and Ted, said that they think it makes it more interesting to post them right before league because then it’s fresh in your mind for league night. It’s nice of them to say so, anyway.

I learned something else at league, in an embarrassingly protracted way: I eventually figured out who the guy I didn’t recognize who waved at me when I walked in was. I kept thinking this person acted like he knew me, and looked really familiar in a frustrating way, but I could not work out who it was. Later while I was playing my Smackdown game on Medieval Madness I saw him come over and talk to Joseph, so I knew it definitely had to be someone I knew, but I still did not recognize him as a league player. I thought to myself that I had to be able to work this out without embarrassing myself. After some consideration I realized that I had seen him hanging around with Cyndi when I first rolled up, so that was a major clue. Then I realized that, oh yeah, when he was talking to Joseph I recognized his voice: it was Ethan. But why didn’t I recognize him? I’ve met him enough times now and usually have no trouble recognizing him. Why on earth did I have trouble this time? Was I starting to lose my face recognition circuit or something?

So I think it was probably about an hour later that I realized that Ethan used to have a beard.

Ethan’s really the MVP of this league report, since he also won the Undercard division of the Tuesday Night Smackdown tournament, which was played on the randomly selected Metallica (edit: no, it was what’s in the place where Metallica used to be, Guardians of the Galaxy!). Travis won the main championship on Medieval Madness. They each got a button that I drew a dragon on, although I think I did better a better job on one of them than the other. I’ll let the two of them compare buttons and decide which one. After he won his button, Ethan pinned it on himself, pointed at it and boastfully demanded that Cyndi read it. As I’ve said before, he brings a lot of energy to league nights.

Unfortunately for Mike, he missed the last league night due to illness, which has allowed Tim to pass him and take first in the league standings. Danny C. is in third place. The three of them are still clustered fairly closely, and then there’s a fairly steep drop down to fourth place Jason Magnuson. As of right now we have 26 qualified players which would make for a 13-person A division season finals, which is already bigger than we have ever done, and with three people who each only need to come to one more night to be qualified, we are very likely to have a 14-person A and it’s not impossible that it could be 15. We’re going to have to talk about what to do because we will not be able to finish a tournament in our usual format with that many people. We’ll talk more about that later.

Oh, and as for that person who didn’t finish their bank rotation? Reader, it was I. Joseph was putting the scores in for the night when suddenly he said to me, with that voice that he uses when he’s telling me something he knows is going to upset me, “Dear, I think you played the same bank twice.” I somehow hadn’t noticed, but yes, I had. Joseph keeps track of who plays what bank and he had accidentally written my name on the wrong score sheet the time before after we drew for banks, so this time he put me in a group based on what group I was supposed to be in the previous time rather than which one I had actually played in. I had to go back to the bar later (but not that night as it was already awfully late) and play the bank I was supposed to play. Some much for my exciting third ball rally on Indiana Jones.

May 23 was not just James Blish’s birthday; it was also the beginning of the back half of the league season. We started a rotation of Banks 5 and 6, known to me (and possibly only to me) as “Athena” and “Hades.” The former includes Avengers, Cactus Canyon, Rush, Jurassic Park, and Black Knight: Sword of Rage. The latter is Indiana Jones, AC/DC, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, and Stranger Things. Or, at least, it’s supposed to. AC/DC had a malfunction and had to be replaced using a designated game from Bank 7, which was The Mandalorian.

The results don’t mean much at this point in the rotation, with only half of everyone having played each bank, but so far Jason is in the lead on bank Athena and Mike has the top spot on bank Hades. Mike has held onto the top spot in the league standings, with Danny C. in second place, trailing by 11 points. The gap between second and third is even wider, with Tim 30 points behind Danny. Of course, all of that could change once the rotation finishes this week.

My main impression of the league night is how I took some guff from Derik on two distinct points. First he asked me what was wrong with my random number generator that the Tuesday Night Smackdown game is always Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had already gotten teased about this by Joseph but there is a perfectly good explanation. Each game can only come up in the Tuesday Night Smackdown once per season before it gets scratched out of future random drawings, but the Undercard game is chosen by randomly drawing from the few games located closest to the chosen Smackdown game. There is no limit on how many times something can be an Undercard game and it just happens that we have played several games near TMNT over the past couple of seasons, causing it to be an Undercard game repeatedly. I admit that the RNG does seem to like to draw it from the available options, though.

The other thing I remember Derik saying was in response to his noticing my very small phone for the first time. I think the direct quote is, “Is that seriously your f***ing phone?” said in an almost indignant tone, as though I had violated some law of nature.

Our Tuesday Night Smackdown game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this time, with the Undercard randomly selected to be Deadpool. The Undercard match went on a touch longer than necessary due to my having to repeatedly fetch Ethan from wherever he’d wandered off to spread his brand of enthusiasm, like a Johnny Appleseed of cheer. Tim secured the win in the main match and got the TMNT-colored button I made. Ted got to take home the button for his Undercard win on Deadpool.

That wraps up our previous update, in time as usual for our next meeting tomorrow night, during which we will finish the rotation of Athena and Hades.

May 9 was the last night of the first half of our eight-night season. We had a healthy crowd for it as usual, and split everyone between banks 3 and 4, which I have dubbed Poseidon and Hermes. Since this completed the rotation of those two banks, the standings for each bank and the first half of the season are final. Tim triumphed on Bank 3, which contains Iron Maiden, Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, James Bond 007, and Monster Bash. The winner for Bank 4 was Danny C.; that bank comprises The Getaway, Tron, Willy Wonka, Batman ’66, and Metallica. The overall winner for the front half of the season was Danny. Mike is just two points behind him, and Tim one point behind Mike. At that point there is a steeper dropoff to 4th place and beyond.

Danny had a winning couple of weeks, since in our off-league week we had the Foo Fighters Launch Party, and he took home the Grand Champion plaque and translite. During league night we had a sort of launch party prequel, since Foo Fighters was the Tuesday Night Smackdown game, and Danny won that tournament too. Our Tuesday Night Smackdown tournaments have had the most participation they’ve ever had in recent weeks, thanks in part to a lot of the new league players competing.

Our new league players have continued to infuse a lot of energy and enthusiasim into league nights. I had thought we perhaps scared Jon off after his first league night, but happily, he made a return after a couple of nights away. Our newest league member, Devon, also made a reappearance. It’s good to know that league has been so welcoming to our new members.

With the first half of the season over, that means that tonight is the last chance for new members to join and still get in the needed four nights to qualify for playing in the finals tournament. If you know anyone who might want to start coming, tell them now is the time! We’ll be playing banks 5 and 6 tonight. Bank 5, “Athena,” is Avengers, Cactus Canyon, Rush, Jurassic Park, and Black Knight: Sword of Rage. Bank 6, “Hades,” is Indiana Jones, AC/DC, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, and Stranger Things. I hope to see you all tonight! (Also, don’t forget that next Tuesday is the women’s launch party for Foo Fighters!)

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!