Keeping the Spirit of Pinball Alive
It was a typical Tuesday night at the Long Beach Beer Lab. The waft of Margherita pizza and different types of beer filled the building, as did the sounds of loud chatter and laughter.
Flashing neon lights painted the opposite side of the building where a large crowd hovered over narrow machines with numerous mechanics that seemed to make click-clacky noises every second. To many of these individuals, these machines play big roles in their lives.
Tom Walker founded the Long Beach Pinball League in 2022 under Brewcades, which hosts their pinball machines in local breweries for people to play with, from regular chaperones to players in the league.
Growing up in Newport Beach, Tom Walker, along with his wife Jessica Walker, developed a fondness for pinball when they would play on the machines at the Balboa Fun Zone in the 1980s. They’d eventually move up north to Oregon, coming back to Newport Beach in 2018 when their passion for pinball was reignited.
“When we moved back in 2018, we realized there's an app called Pinball Map and it's supposed to have the games that are on it there and when you show up, they're supposed to work and you comment on them and stuff like that,” he said.
Tom Walker announcing the prizes for the league's third meeting, which were provided by Bamboo Club and TWOB. Photo by Daphne Ford.
“What we were finding is that most of the time you go to the Pinball Map and then the location, the game wouldn't be the game that it said it was on there. Or if it was, it wasn't working right or they were in poor, you know, maintenance.”
That’s when Tom Walker decided to connect pinball machine operators with local breweries to host perfectly working pinball machines for people to play on.
One of the two breweries that Brewcades currently runs under is the Long Beach Beer Lab, home to the Long Beach Pinball League. Around 60 players make up the league and it is officially certified under the International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA), which serves as the governing body for competitive pinball.
Two pinball machines, Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro and Godzilla Pro, owned by Brewcades. Photo by Daphne Ford.
One of these players is Steve Ward, who has been with the Long Beach Pinball League since its formation in 2022. Right after the end of the lockdowns imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ward wanted to go out and do something. After ordering a pinball machine for the arcade in his garage, the seller asked if he played in any pinball leagues.
“I'm like, ‘What are you talking about?’ There was a tournament— it was Tom's tournament like two years ago. And so I went there. I actually got like third place, which is pretty good. I'm like, ‘Oh, this is fun,” Ward said. “And then I joined a league, the Santa Ana one… and then Tom did a league and I started playing that one. Then I had two leagues going, so it was fun. And then all of a sudden I'm taking flights to Seattle to play a tournament, driving to Arizona just last month.”
Ward’s beginnings of playing pinball with the Long Beach Pinball League have led to him scoring the 264th spot of top pinball players in the world. Under the IFPA, he goes by Steve Ward CA.
Jennifer King is another member of the Long Beach Pinball League. She recently joined after her husband convinced her to move from Monterey Bay. Another part of the reason she wanted to join was because she noticed there weren’t many women in the league.
“There's a definite need for like more women in pinball… some other places do ladies’ leagues for that reason. Just ‘cause men can get very mansplainy with them,” King said.
Before joining the league, King had already been playing pinball with her husband back at Lynn’s Arcade in Monterey Bay. She had never been as involved as she is now as part of a competitive pinball league.
What Tom and Jessica Walker hope for the future of the Long Beach Pinball League is more new players. This particular Tuesday night, the league gained seven members.
There is a sense of familiarity and community amongst the Long Beach Pinball League. Photo by Daphne Ford.
Jessica Walker stressed the communalism of the league and the businesses they connect with to get free prizes to give out to league players. They’ve worked with businesses like Richwell’s Records and Bamboo Club to give out to the community.
“We believe in communal stuff,” Jessica Walker said. “So, like, what brings the community together comes around. Meaning that like, we'll get new players, they'll get new customers. It's so important to us.”
It was 30 minutes after closing time at the Long Beach Beer Lab and the staff members put Machine Girl’s music on blast, which blared through the speakers. The league members that were still there were chatting with each other amongst the now dim pinball machines, some of them getting ready to go to PBS Pub & Co. two doors down.
The sense of community at the Long Beach Pinball League is just getting started.
“We're all characters. We got hes, we got shes, we got them, we got theys,” Jessica Walker said. “Listen to me: this place is for everybody.”