Guest report by Joseph with photos by Heather
First, thanks to Heather for letting me fill in on the tradition of writing league reports.
Season XVI of the Lansing Pinball League ended with the traditional split-flipper Super-Ball Tournament. And the tournament kept up the tradition of finding an odd number of players there. Thus we kept up the tradition of finding someone to play on two split-flipper teams. And this gave me my first taste of playing on two teams, one with Heather and one with Tim. I’ve been fortunate enough to win the split-flipper tournaments with both players before, so felt good about my chances. Being on two of the five teams seems like a great start.
This was the first split-flipper tournament where we used the rule that a team could pick a game only once per night. The rule had been used at Finals for this season, and people enjoyed the elements of strategy and game diversity it brought. Somehow I still ended up playing Star Trek a lot, and discovered I’m better at Star Trek when I control only one flipper. I don’t get it either.
Making their debut as a team were newlyweds Bryan and Jenny. Bryan’s a fixture, and his father an always welcome sometimes-participant. But this was the first time to my recollection that Jenny’s come to a league event. Here’s hoping that more of the Johnson clan can join us.
What I somehow failed to anticipate was having to play against myself, and quite so much. Heather and I played me and Tim in the first round, where I felt like I was letting Tim down by winning with Heather. And then again in the second-chance bracket, when I thought I’d redeemed myself in Tim’s eyes by playing well against the team of Pat and Biff. Also, somehow, both of these pairs turn out to be pretty good at split-flipper Lord of the Rings.
The team that did end up dominating my-and-Heather’s night would be the dream team of Josh and Jason, whom we ended up playing three times. They knocked me and Heather into the Second Chance bracket, but we came right back to give them their first loss. And that was on their picks of Willy Wonka and The Mandalorian, games I didn’t know you could play split-flipper worth anything. And then, just as we were feeling good about our chances, Josh and Jason knocked us dead on Munsters and Getaway, the two games we thought our best bets. But this let me extend the tradition of trying my hardest to look like a good sport after losing in finals, so that’s nice.
Afterwards, we respected yet another league tradition. We saw Dan C playing Godzilla, as is his custom, and gave him the third-place A Division trophy he had left Finals without collecting. He had not realized that he had won a trophy. It is not always the case that we have something we missed giving to Dan before he left last session, but it happens more than you’d think.
Season XVII is set to begin tonight the 11th, at 7 pm, using the same banks as last season. Will Mike four-peat as League Champion? Will we have so many players we need to split them across two banks? Will we be able to return to everyone playing the same games? Who will win the Smackdown game of Attack From Mars? Or the Undercard game of Junkyard? What’s going on with the Smackdown medals? Have you seen The Avenue’s new frontage? How are we going to know it’s The Avenue when there’s a big, clear, unmistakable sign out front saying it’s The Avenue? The only way to know is to see Heather’s league report in two weeks. Also to step outside The Avenue after the sun sets. Not all of these questions are hard.