One of my latest obsessions is pinball. I’ve liked it since I was a kid, but in the past couple of years I’ve really dived into learning/practicing flipper techniques and the rulesets for my favorite machines. I’m definitely past “just keep it out of the drain hole” and now if I have a rare day to myself I will drive two hours to my ultimate happy place – an all-you-can-play pinball museum!

I appreciate pinball machines like I appreciate turntables: I love them for their very mechanical nature. I love their sounds, I love their art. I love that there can be deep rulesets that can take awhile to learn and fully appreciate. I enjoy playing virtual pinball on my iPad too. A nice feature is an instructional mode that will take you play-by-play across the table and explain the entire ruleset. Most of the machines that I own on the app I know very, very well and have played many, many times. Playing them in person is a very different experience though, like seeing an old friend in a new way. I’m now learning how to nudge the ball, which you just can’t learn with a screen.

There is an arcade in my town with a decent selection of pinball machines and I hoped for years that they would start up a league so I had an excuse to play more often. That never happened, but every time I went I would see the same guy there and we would always say hi and chat a bit. Eventually, we talked about starting up a league ourselves, and in 2025 we finally decided to go for it and started the Gainesville Pinball League. Our first season had 9 people, mostly friends we recruited to test things out. It went so well we publicly advertised our next season and ended up with 27 players. Our third season had 40 players and we are shocked how fast we are growing. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a labor of love for me and my co-founder friend. It is so worth it when we see everyone having a great time on league night and making new friends. Several members have come up to thank us for starting this, that it’s finally getting them out of the house and meeting new people and it’s the highlight of their week. Getting this community of like-minded people together has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done (not counting my family, of course).

I’m not listing these scores to brag (I’m not that good!), just to keep track of them in case the apps I use fail. Do you play? Let’s be friends on Stern Insider (@sfaze) or Pindingo (@sfaze=IRL machines; @sfazebot=iPad tables). Scores below are just for real life machines, not virtual.