Pull the plunger and prepare for passionate pings with the Long Beach Pinball League

Mitch Kasse uses his entire body to play pinball. 

His checkered flat cap dips low and pops back up as he closely tracks the small metal ball that holds his fate. He looks comfortable in his crouched stance, ready to give the machine a swift jolt with his hips if a tilt is needed. As his eyes dart swiftly over the illuminated, chaotic playfield, it’s clear only one thing matters—it’s pinball night. 

Kasse is one of over 30 passionate pinball players who will congregate to the Long Beach Beer Lab each Tuesday over the next month for the second season of the Long Beach Pinball League. 

On the night of Feb. 28, the league is sandwiched into the eastern corner of the Beer Lab. Players crowd around the 10 machines to watch their opponents (constantly cheering them on), weave in between one another to make room for the next player and run to and from the next room to replenish themselves with frosty craft beers and homemade pizza. 

“It’s a very welcoming community and it’s a physical, kinetic thing with real people, in person,” said Tom Walker, who runs the league with his wife Jessica. “You get paired up with strangers and you interact with each other. People make friends here. I think after COVID everybody was missing that.”

The couple runs pinball leagues in Newport, Huntington Beach and Long Beach, welcoming “one and all,” their website, Brewcades.com states. 

“We really try to appeal to all levels of players,” Walker said. “I have people that have been coming for two seasons and they’ll just start winning.” 

Players who join the Long Beach Pinball League are automatically entered into the International Flipper Pinball Association’s ranking system. The association was formed by lovers of the game in 2006 and now has over 96,000 players in its system from 45 countries. 

Long Beach is the latest city that’s participating in the return of beloved retro games, thanks to Lakewood resident Gonzalo Martinez, a pinball machine collector. The 10 machines that the league plays on each week are part of his personal collection. 

Martinez bought his first pinball machine about seven years ago, a “Ghostbusters” machine that was released in 2016 and is now sold out. It’s described as “easy to play, but difficult to master” on the manufacturer’s website, which may explain why Martinez was enamored with it. 

“From there it was like a drug,” Martinez said.  

He owns about 25 machines now, 10 of which live at the Beer Lab. “I keep my holy grails at home,” Martinez said. The “Ghostbusters” machine is among these.

A couple times a week, Martinez clocks off from his 9-to-5 as a project manager at a construction company, goes to his Lakewood home for a quick shower and a bite to eat before racing down to the Beer Lab to check on his machines. He cleans them, waxes them, tests the switches and makes sure each machine gives off that distinct and satisfying ping sound of the metal ball ricocheting around and hitting targets.

“As my collection grew, I wanted to share it with other people … Everyone thinks they’re great at [pinball] at home, and then you come to the wild and you realize you’re not,” he says, laughing. “But everyone helps each other out when they have questions.”

Each game has its own intricacies; storylines to follow, spaces to manipulate, captive balls or holes to hit and gaps to avoid. 

There’s an AC/DC machine that gives players a bump in scoring just for choosing the song “Highway to Hell” before starting. Each contestant has their favorite machine to play on, and they can rattle off reasons why without hesitation. 

“You gotta know how to play. You can be playing for 30 minutes and basically score nothing,” Martinez said. “Then I’ll tell someone, ‘Hit this or hit that, focus on this and that to get the multi-ball.’ Then all the lights come on and they want to keep going.”

For newer players, the game seems mostly random. But these guys—and they are mostly guys—will tell you it’s more skill than luck. The ones who get better are the ones who keep coming back. 

Die-hard fans of the game consider themselves part of the Stern Army, the largest manufacturer of pinball machines. When Stern Pinball announced the release of the “Dr. No” pinball machine—based on the 1962 007 James Bond spy film, fans rejoiced on social media and online. 

When Martinez installed the machine at the Long Beach Beer Lab in January, after a year-long wait to get his hands on it, there was a line of players waiting for their turn. The game is never empty on Tuesday nights. 

It’s a fierce competition in an undeniably friendly environment. Between the jumping and yelling, competitors are congratulating each other and giving tips on how to complete certain tasks that will achieve higher scores, such as the multi-ball Martinez mentioned, when a heap of metal balls comes raining down with better chances to control the chaos. 

Each Tuesday, teams are formed of two to three players who are placed with each other based on their previous scores and switched around every week. This is to even out the competition, Walker said, though prizes rewarded and points tallied are purely based on an individual’s score. 

It also allows the newer players to meet new people each time they attend. More seasoned players give tips to their teammates while newcomers vigilantly watch in between games, hoping to pick up the techniques and secrets for conquering each machine. 

Players compete for prizes each Tuesday, which include Long Beach Pinball League T-shirts that are redesigned each year and posters matching the original art that’s used in some of the games, donated by Stern Pinball manufacturers. 

Competitors get five chances throughout the night to tally the highest scores possible in order to receive prizes. It’s all leading up to April 1, when the top eight players will face off for the coveted Silver Ball Trophy. 

Last year, Martinez walked away victorious, but tonight he sits at the bottom of his team’s rankings. In good humor, his teammate Dan Mac revels in finally beating Martinez. 

“He never gets last,” Mac says, grinning. 

Martinez is laughing too, then he gets serious as he scans the competition again. “It’s a focus game. You get distracted … You lose focus. It’s like a board game. I have a family you know, I could be really good if I wanted to but I would have to apply myself more.”

Martinez says he doesn’t have any rituals or superstitions about competing, but just at that moment he’s called up for his turn and puts on his headphones. He’s one of the only players wearing headphones while they play, and his teammate/competitor asks me to find out what he’s listening to. Any edge counts. 

These days, Martinez prides himself a bit more in keeping his machines in pristine condition. 

“I’m very proud of my machines. I’m very picky,” Martinez said. “If I go somewhere and it’s a bad machine I won’t go back. You feel like you got cheated out of your game.”

Most of these players have palpable memories of the neon lights, plastic flippers and ticking scores back when pinball machines could be found in nearly every mall and arcade in the ‘80s. 

“I’m an ‘80s kid at heart,” Martinez said. “I grew up having the mall and playing arcade games and pinball. Now every game is the same.” 

He’s talking about video games, which essentially put pinball underground when they arrived in the ‘80s. A few players share the same sentiment—what makes pinball special is the physical strategy that goes hand-in-hand with the mental. It’s a balance of luck, skill and dedication to learn the tricks of each machine.

Even the newer players can recall the first time they rested their hands on the flipper buttons, patiently waiting for the right time to hit the ball. 

Mitch Kasse played his first game of pinball when he was working in a satellite launching facility in Russia in 1996. 

“This motherfucker right here,” he says, pointing to another player in the league who unknowingly walked into Mitch reminiscing. “He brought two machines into the facility just for fun, and that was it.” 

For the three years that Mitch and his team were working in an isolated environment, they would unwind with 10-hour sessions of pinball on a 1992 Creature from the Black Lagoon machine and endless glasses of Russian vodka. 

Now he and his former co-worker come to the Beer Lab every Tuesday to play. 

Long after prizes are handed out and scores are entered into the IFPA rankings, about a third of the players remain, practicing for next week’s matches. They correct their earlier mistakes, egg each other on and take pictures of personal records achieved. 

In the midst of late-night games, as the Beer Lab announces last call, Martinez checks on his machines one last time, opening them up to check on wires and switches. He’ll be back in a couple of days to do it again. 

The Long Beach Pinball League will play each Tuesday night at the Long Beach Beer Lab (518 W Willow St.) at 7:30 p.m. until April 1. Entry is $30, which goes towards prizes, and players must bring their own coins to play the five rounds. In order to compete in the April 1 final, a player must attend at least four meetings. 

The pinball league will host a tournament on Saturday, March 4 at 2 p.m. Entry is $10, plus coins to play. The tournament is welcome to players of all skill levels.