This special league is lit

I've laced up my Pumas. I'm donning a '90s indie rock T-shirt (tonight it's Pavement). I'm at the Long Beach Beer Lab for the Long Beach Pinball League. Gonzo, our league's president, announces our pairings, and — boom — my name pops with three others for my night's competition.

Is this even for real? Is this some sort of dream? Somehow, miraculously, I've stumbled across the Long Beach Pinball League, and — ba da ba ba ba — I'm loving it.

I'm in my third season, and each season lasts just six weeks, meeting on Tuesday nights with the finals on a Sunday. The league just celebrated its third year anniversary, and it's open to anybody to join. If you want to get in on the action, email me or DM the league via Instagram. 

I already have a claim to fame — in my mind. I finished third in the Division II finals in my first season. That third-place finish is kind of shocking because, admittedly, many of my fellow competitors have much more experience and actual plans when playing. I'm still learning a lot about controlling the ball, and only know a few machines well.

How it works is that the top 8 in the regular season face off for the Division I championship. Everybody else is in Division II. Scores are determined by where you place against three others each Tuesday.

I guess I have a goal to crack into the elite 8. I'm not so sure I will any time soon because many players are in multiple leagues and are at a much higher level than me, but you never know. I finished 16th in the regular season in my second go-around, so maybe, one day. But eh, who cares?

Whimsical, tactile, nostalgic, imaginative — I could add more adjectives about why pinball is cool. Y'know, it cannot be digitally manipulated. You need to play in person. Then, when it's a league of others who feel something similarly, I've found pinball bliss.

Ever since I was a young boy, I played ... Eh, you know how Pinball Wizard by The Who goes. From Cleveland down to Columbus, I didn't play them all, but I enjoyed the silver ball.

I started enjoying pinball back in the '90s when Addams Family (1992) and Twilight Zone (1993) ruled the pinball world. When my parents moved to their Polish Mansion in Brecksville, Ohio, it came with a pool table and old timey pinball machine Top Hand (1966). Jackpot!

That was 1991, the same year I graduated St. Ignatius High School and started at The Ohio State University. Down in Columbus, we had two arcades with pinball machines — the Flamingo, AKA the Flaming O, and some other lame one I actually worked at for a few months.

Pinball was all over the place. Addams Family sold around 21,000 units and became the highest selling pinball machine of all-time, and then pinball had quite a run in the '90s, only to fizzle out by 2000, when really the only company manufacturing machines was Stern.

After Y2K, it was much harder to find, and play, pinball, but that brings us to Nov. 23, 2013. That date lives in Stevens lore because I purchased Lord of the Rings (2003) from Cal Bowl in Lakewood, Calif., for a mere $500. I had to refurbish it, but it was totally worth it as a high quality Lord of the Rings machine could go for $8,000.

I played that machine so much when I first got it, but then I eventually went stretches without playing at all. But, honestly, it's not that enjoyable to be alone with the best outcome of writing "DAD" or "CLEVELAND" for high scores. Yeah, you can play pinball on your own, but it's kind of like drinking alone.

Last month, our pinball commissioner, Gonzo, who owns more than 50 machines and is a wizard tech with them, was nice enough to come out to my abode and tune up Lord of the Rings. Oh, God, thank you, man! I didn't realize how many little things could be tweaked to get it in tip-top working order. It's totally clicking on all cylinders, or it's lighting up with every bulb, if you will.

I don't think I'll ever be in a position to be in more than one pinball league. I don't think you'll find a better league than the Long Beach Pinball League because of our array of characters. I've met some players in other leagues, and let me say this about the Long Beach crew: Our nerds are cooler than yours.

So at the end of the day, I like the people, and this pinball family has a diverse group that is more interesting than the machines. These folks come equipped with lives and stories, trials and tribulations, humor and medallions.

It's nice to have gathered some activity friends, and I look forward to Tuesday nights. If you're lucky enough to be around me as I finish my night, I might gleefully say: "See you next Tuesday!"