# Foster Connection

**Source:** NYC PinPod  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-05-25  
**Duration:** 87m 25s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.spreaker.com/episode/foster-connection--72145601

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## Analysis

NYC PinPod covers local competition results from Stomp 2026 in Rochester and Pinball NYC leagues, reports venue updates showing 364 machines at 75 NYC locations with maintenance notes, and features an interview segment about Topper's Queer Pinball Club. The episode focuses on league season finales, summer league announcements, and Eric Sweetland's first-time experience at Rochester Pinball Collective.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] As of May 22, 2026, there are 364 pinball machines in New York City at 75 public locations. — _Eric Sweetland citing Pinball Map data_
- [HIGH] Rochester Pinball Collective has approximately 80 pinball machines with a large collection of classics. — _Eric Sweetland describing his first visit to the venue for Stomp 2026_
- [HIGH] Stomp 2026 Classics featured 20 rounds of four-player group match play qualifying with A, B, and C finals. — _Benjamin Furiga and Eric Sweetland discussing tournament format_
- [HIGH] Matt Persglove won Stomp 2026 Classics first place, followed by Tommy Ortega (2nd), Janos Kiss Gonzalez (3rd), and Matt Grady (4th). — _Eric Sweetland reporting tournament results_
- [HIGH] Stomp 2026 coordinated women's tournament scheduling to avoid conflicts between women's division and main/classics qualifying. — _Benjamin Furiga noting this as a logistical improvement_
- [HIGH] Dante Oliva has lost to only 5 opponents of the 30 he faced over the first two weeks of SSPL 3 with a near-perfect 33-point score. — _Benjamin Furiga reporting South Slope Pinball League results_
- [HIGH] Pinball NYC Pinball Summer season started in late May 2026 at Barcade Brooklyn with finals in late June. — _Benjamin Furiga announcing upcoming summer league schedule_
- [HIGH] No Bro Summer League runs June 16-August 4, 2026 with a draft party on June 14 and venues across multiple Brooklyn locations. — _Benjamin Furiga citing Facebook announcement for summer league_

### Notable Quotes

> "I didn't figure y'all needed to know that Raymond Davidson won the fucking A division because that just happens sometimes."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~4:00
> _Humorous dismissal of out-of-town tournament winners, prioritizing NYC-relevant results_

> "It sounds to me like logistically they might have found a way at Stomp to deal with the very legitimate complaint that participants in women's tournaments often have, Which is that it's really hard when you go to one of these big weekends to participate in the women's and also think that you're going to qualify in classics or think that you're going to qualify in Maine."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~6:30
> _Recognition of improved tournament logistics addressing gender equity in competition scheduling_

> "That collection is fucking something, isn't it? It's incredible. It's massive and well-maintained. Everything was near perfect."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~26:00
> _First impressions of Rochester Pinball Collective's curated machine collection_

> "I remember getting a first on the 2017 Stern Star Wars. That's a good one to get a first on for me, too."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~35:00
> _Discussion of relative game difficulty and player comfort with modern vs. classic machines_

> "Raymond recognized my name and said, oh, hey, I like the podcast. I listen sometimes."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~43:00
> _Evidence of podcast reach and recognition within competitive pinball community_

> "Holly Cake House was open and it was awesome. So there's this vegan breakfast joint. In a sort of abandoned mall kind of place."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~48:00
> _Casual venue detail adding local color to Rochester experience_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Benjamin Furiga | person | Co-host of NYC PinPod, initiator BCF, pinball community member covering local NY competition |
| Eric Sweetland | person | Co-host of NYC PinPod, pinball tournament director in NYC, first-time visitor to Rochester Pinball Collective, provides venue updates via Pinball Map |
| Jade Nicole Anderson | person | Co-host of NYC PinPod, founding member of Topper's Queer Pinball Club |
| Kate Krish | person | Co-host of NYC PinPod, creator of Topper's Pinball, organizer of Topper's events |
| Haley | person | Co-host of NYC PinPod, pinball initials F-P-Z (flips), organizer of Topper's events |
| Rochester Pinball Collective | venue | Pinball arcade in Rochester, NY at 349 West Commercial Street, hosts Stomp tournaments, has ~80-machine collection, recently hosted Stomp 2026 |
| Stomp 2026 | event | Tournament hosted by Rochester Pinball Collective featuring Classics division, main division, and women's division with scheduled coordination |
| Matt Persglove | person | Winner of Stomp 2026 Classics division |
| Tommy Ortega | person | Second place in Stomp 2026 Classics division |
| Janos Kiss Gonzalez | person | Third place in Stomp 2026 Classics division, also in SSPL top finishers |
| Matt Grady | person | Fourth place in Stomp 2026 Classics, won RWI I Beat the Cat shirt twice, leads Pinball Summer at Barcade Brooklyn |
| Raymond Davidson | person | Won Stomp 2026 A division main tournament, listens to NYC PinPod, recognized Eric Sweetland during competition |
| Dante Oliva | person | Won RWI I Beat the Cat shirt, SSPL 3 leader with near-perfect 33-point score, member of Lion Persons team |
| Sean Grant | person | Leader of Scrapple League 2026 Season 3 with 31 points through three weeks |
| Greg Pavarelli | person | Tournament director for Scrapple League, second in SSPL rankings, assistant organizer |
| Zach Sharpe | person | Rochester pinball machine operator, brings wood rails to Rochester Pinball Collective, previously discussed collection on podcast |
| Pinball NYC | organization | NYC-based pinball league organization running left/right flipper divisions with season finals and end-of-season party at Solid State Queens |
| South Slope Pinball League (SSPL) | organization | NYC pinball league running at Buttermilk Bar with 27 players participating in weekly qualifying sessions |
| Scrapple League | organization | Competitive pinball league at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint with 44 eligible machines from ~60 total, meets Wednesdays |
| Lion Persons | organization | Pinball NYC team that won left orbit finals 9-3 against Balls of Steel at Rulo's |
| Balls of Steel | organization | Pinball NYC team that lost to Lion Persons in left orbit finals |
| Scrapple Land | venue | Pinball venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn hosting Scrapple League and Brooklyn Pin Pride tournament |
| Rulo's | venue | Pinball venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, home to multiple teams including No Quarters for Laundry and Whopper Hunt participants |
| Barcade Brooklyn | venue | Pinball venue hosting Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League and Pinball Summer season starting May 2026 |
| Jack Bar | venue | Pinball venue hosting No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes and Pinball NYC right orbit playoffs |
| Buttermilk Bar | venue | South Slope, Brooklyn venue hosting South Slope Pinball League on Thursdays |

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** Stomp 2026 Classics completed with strong NYC contingent placing in top 4 (3 of 4 finalists from NY) (confidence: high) — Matt Persglove 1st, Tommy Ortega 2nd, Janos Kiss Gonzalez 3rd, Matt Grady 4th - described as 'three New Yorkers' and 'large contingent'
- **[event_signal]** Stomp 2026 improved women's tournament scheduling to enable participation in both women's and main/classics divisions (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga explicitly noted finding 'a pretty good compromise' to address long-standing complaint about concurrent tournament scheduling
- **[venue_signal]** NYC pinball machine inventory stable at 364 machines across 75 public locations as of May 22, 2026 (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland reports Pinball Map data; McKenna's Pub closure resulted in -2 games but same location count
- **[venue_signal]** Multiple machine maintenance issues reported: Jaws LE at Scrapple Land (filthy playfield/faulty flippers), World Cup Soccer at Area 140 (software resetting), Monopoly (coin register issue), Godzilla at Barcade Chelsea (action button failure), Hot Wheels at Throwback (sensitive tilt) (confidence: high) — Five separate Pinball Map user reports detailing specific mechanical/software failures across venues
- **[community_signal]** NYC PinPod has recognizable audience reach within competitive tournament scene; Raymond Davidson (prominent player) cited listening to the podcast (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland reports Raymond Davidson approached him saying 'I like the podcast. I listen sometimes.' and noting he was one of several people who recognized him
- **[competitive_signal]** Dante Oliva establishing dominant early season lead in SSPL 3 with 33-point near-perfect score week 3, only 5 losses in 30 matches faced (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga reporting specific statistics: 'With a near-perfect score of 33 this week, over the first two weeks of the season, Dante has only lost to five opponents of the 30 he's faced'
- **[competitive_signal]** NYC pinball leagues transitioning to summer format with multiple parallel leagues (Pinball Summer, No Bro Summer, Summer Tuesdays) offering casual alternatives to year-round competitive play (confidence: high) — Three separate summer league structures announced with varying formats: individual scoring, drafted teams, and weekly group matches
- **[venue_signal]** McKenna's Pub closure resulted in removal of Demolition Man and Avengers Infinity Quest; location being phased out of Pinball Map (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland reports games 'were functionally unreachable' and venue 'had been closed for a while'; Pinball Map will remove zero-pin locations via garbage collection routine
- **[venue_signal]** Rochester Pinball Collective's venue (Piano Factory) is well-maintained, tournament-ready facility with TV infrastructure for match play display (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland describes 'set up for elegant competition' with 'TVs in a lot of places that like match play can show up on very easily' and 'near perfect' machine condition
- **[operational_signal]** NYC pinball community expanding summer league offerings to improve accessibility (Gebhardt's Manhattan location specifically cited for players from Bronx/out-of-town) (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga emphasizes Summer Tuesdays at Gebhardt's as solution for players unable to reach Brooklyn venues regularly
- **[content_signal]** NYC PinPod established recurring three-ball format: Ball 1 (competition results), Ball 2 (venue updates/personal bulletins), Ball 3 (featured topic) (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga explicitly states structure at episode opening and maintains it throughout
- **[community_signal]** NYC team pinball leagues evolving draft system to allow player choice while maintaining team-building opportunity for new participants (confidence: medium) — Benjamin Furiga explains Monday night Park Slope team leagues use captain-based drafting allowing friend groups to guarantee teaming while others join randomly

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## Transcript

Look at that. Happy Sunday, Pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC PinPod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and sometimes nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF. And as usual, life is unlike a Billy Joel song. These are not the last words I have to say. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP. I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. My name is Jade Nicole Anderson. My initials are SDY and I am a founding member of Topper's Queer Pinball Club. I'm Kate Krish. My initials are P-U-G, yes, pug like the cutest animal of all time. And I am also one of the creators of Topper's Pinball. I'm Haley. My pinball initials are F-P-Z, which stands for flips, which is my pinball nickname. And I am also one of the organizers of Topper's. On this week's pod, we'll close out the season by doing those things we always do. In Ball 1, we'll run down local competition results, including the finals of Pinball NYC's left and right flipper divisions. We'll do venue updates with Eric, courtesy of Pinball Map and its users, and our bullet journals in Ball 2, including some of Eric's time in Rochester, some information about that, which is going to be fun. And in Ball 3, we will talk with Jade and Kate and Haley about toppers. Let's get started. Let's talk competition results from the past week in New York City and nearby surrounding areas. Yeah, ish nearby. Yeah. In Rochester, New York on Saturday at the Rochester Pinball Collective, the finals of Stomp 2026 Classics finished with Matt Persglove in first place, Tommy Ortega in second place, Janos Kiss Gonzalez in third and Matt Grady in fourth. Three New Yorkers. Unfortunately, two, three and four, but still three New Yorkers. The other words, a large contingent of New York City players at the Rochester Pinball Collective for Stomp weekend. I was among them. There was a main tournament, 20 rounds of qualifying, A, B, and C finals. There was a classics match play. 20 rounds of what? 20 rounds of max match play? No, it was 20 rounds of four-player group match play. Of group match play. So the main was four-player group match play, 20 rounds over the weekend. That's right, yeah. Friday night and Saturday evening were the mains. Gotcha. Saturday morning was the Classics target match play. And then running all throughout it was the women's division, a hybrid best game. Gotcha. I personally found it challenging. It's a big collection up there. Really big. Yeah. 80-ish? Yeah. Something like that. And I've never touched a single one of them before. Right. Oh, you have. They've just been somewhere else, I bet, right? You never played any of Bruce's games or Zach's games somewhere? I bet you did. I recognize a couple of Bruce's games that I had played before. Right. And I mean, don't get me wrong. There are three or four other cooperators other than Zach and Bruce there. And I presume that some of Ron's games probably come if it's Stomp because it's Slam Tilt Oh My Podcast tournament. But I don't know for sure if any of Ron's games are there. Last time I checked, there were five cooperators. They included Zach and Ron. And if I saw the other three of your names in match play, I would remember them. But I'm sorry to say that I'm not remembering them otherwise. By Saturday night, coming into the very end of the main tournament qualifying rounds, I started to get a handle on stuff and did pretty well in the last five rounds, three firsts and two seconds. That got me up to qualify for the B Finals, but I didn't stick around for the B Finals. I headed home on Sunday afternoon. I had a train to catch. Gotcha. You took the train. Well, part of the way. I took the train to Hudson and then drove with Lawrence from Hudson up to Rochester. That makes sense. So then we're just reporting here the final results of the tournaments that had New York City players. That's right. I didn't figure y'all needed to know that Raymond Davidson won the fucking A division because that just happens sometimes. When you go play a big tournament somewhere, that's just what fucking happens is Raymond Davidson wins the A division. I didn't think we needed to know that. And no New Yorkers were in the A finals for the main division, so we didn't talk about it here. Or the B finals. Right. Although, shout out to Jerry Bernard, who is a Hudson Valley player who was in the top four and Hagen Major, who was just outside the top four of the B finals in May. On Sunday morning, the A finals for the women's tournament finished Megan Dellinger in first, Stephanie Traub in second, Amelia Connelly in third, and Kate Martin in fourth. And in the B division of the women's tournament, Morgan Levinson came in first place with Amy Murphy in second, Lauren Berner Lawrence in third, and Sam Hall in fourth. So your ride was playing until the end of the women's B, but you did not play the main B. Did I clock all of that correctly? Yeah, the main bee started half an hour to an hour after women's finals concluded. I see. Got it. I know this does not directly affect me, but it sounds to me like logistically they might have found a way at Stomp to deal with the very legitimate complaint that participants in women's tournaments often have, Which is that it's really hard when you go to one of these big weekends to participate in the women's and also think that you're going to qualify in classics or think that you're going to qualify in Maine. It almost sounds like they might have found a pretty good compromise here. On Monday, May 18th, the left orbit finals. And by the way, last week I was dyslexic about my divisions. I said nothing. I called the left division the right division. And when I was editing, I noticed that I had called the right flipper the left flipper and cut that out. But I did not. It didn't feel like it was so errata. Excuse me. Last week, I called this the right flipper division and the right orbit finals. But it's actually the left orbit finals where the Lion Persons beat Balls of Steel at Rulo's 9-3, which is to say it was over after three rounds, presumably. Banzai Run and Pokemon were both out as they're both at Barcade Fidei, home of the Lion Persons. But Rulo's must have been a nice choice for these two teams, both featuring a number of players who are also on the Whopper hunt and play at Rulo's quite often. Yep. RWI, South Slope Strikes, and also just, you know, an occasional something else pops up at Rulo's. It's a lot of stuff. An update from RWI tournament director Jess. Yeah. One member each of Lion Persons and Balls of Steel have won an I Beat the Cat shirt at RWI. Ah. I wrote down a bunch of people to tell that I thought had done this and Eric was like, I'm going to fact check this because I was definitely wrong. So it was who? From Balls of Steel, Greg Fertel. Right. And from Lion Persons, Dante Oliva. Very good. Other winners of the RWI, I Beat the Cat shirt. Rob Wong himself has done it twice. Tom Milburn, Billy Vazine, Alberto Santana, and Matt Grady has done it twice. Oh, I would like to second this comment from Jess. Hope we hope we get a woman in that boys club one day. I came close on fucking pirates once. And in the left in lane finals. Benjamin, your colliders went to Scrapple land to face the aristocrats. And the aristocrats get the trophy 9-7. We didn't actually need to finish it because we got beat, but I contributed almost nothing on Monster Bash. Jess had a great ball three. I contributed almost nothing on Monster Bash, and so we had already been beat. We had lost the match nine to at least five. There wasn't a reason to finish it, but Chad had fucking blown up Star Trek. It was, you know, in the 50, 60-ish million range of his score was. Everyone else was at about 10 million. There would have been a comp ball for them afterwards, and so it's not impossible that it could have been, you know, that it could have been an 11-5 game. But they, you know, they gave up, and so we were happy to have it be 9-7. But Chad, round four, playoffs. I'm glad he's on my team. That's what I'm saying. And then on Tuesday, May 19th, the right orbit playoffs of Pinball NYC were held at Jack Bar, where Neptune's Treasure defeated Danger Danger by a score of 8-8. They were the top two seeds. Danger Danger ran it up on their opponents all season and it all came down to a tiebreaker in the end. In the right in lane finals, your Butterballers visited Barcade's Fideye where Everybody Loves the Sunshine were virtually at home and you got an 11-5 win. It was over at 9-3 after three rounds, but we decided to play out the fourth round for fun. Did Chad kick everybody's ass in round four? Chad repeated his amazing championship pub play on behalf of the Butterballers this time, having done it the previous week in the Collider's semifinals match at Barcade Fight Eye. You might recall I said last week that he beat all of the fighters and got the multiball that he got. I think it's the championship multiball or the whatever. The wizard mode. Yeah, I mean, it is the wizard mode of the game. Yeah, I guess so. Well, yeah, he was on fire. I did not play well competitively, but what a great end of the season with a great team. On Wednesday, Scrapple League 2026, the third season, had its third meeting. 27 players showed up to play on the 44 eligible arenas of the, I think we would say about 60 overall arenas at Scrappleland. And they were trying, all of them, to get more points on the way to their series total. And for the third week in a row, Sean Grant did it the best. Greg Pavarelli came in second. The rest of this isn't for the third week in a row, but those two have been in the top two for the last two weeks. Tommy Young, Eric Swedeland, Christian Klossner, and Matt Raz tied with 25 points apiece for third. Greg, by the way, Sean got 31 points now for three straight weeks. Greg had 27 and 27 the first two weeks. He had 29 this time. They're going to be hard to catch this season. There'll be three more weeks of qualifying. Followed by a finals on the seventh week. On Thursday, tournament director Sam Hall brought No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes to Jack Bar. And 24 players joined in. Alex Weisenberger outlasted the crowd, garnering two strikes over 11 rounds. In second, Andy Hayden. Correct me if I'm wrong. Those two are Worm's teammates, I believe, Andy and Alex. Yeah. Tied for third, Connor Kalista and David Brinkman. I saw Connor at SSPL last week. It'd be interesting if you were maxing out Whoppers by qualifying four weeks in the slope and then getting to Jack Bar two weeks. It would also be ballsy to not go the first four weeks to SSPL and know that you were qualified before you went and tried the other two weeks at Jack Bar. But also, I don't imagine Conor's thinking quite like that. But also on Thursday, SSPL 3 had its second meeting of 2026 at Buttermilk. It started, I presume, at Pinball 8 o'clock, and Dante Oliva bested the field, Matt Grady came in second, Billy Vazine third, and Matthew Carlson, Thomas Milburn, and Janos Kiss Gonzalez all tied for fourth with 25 points apiece. With a near-perfect score of 33 this week, over the first two weeks of the season, Dante has only lost to five opponents of the 30 he's faced. This coming week, and I think we'll do a little bit of this coming summer here, there's a summer's worth of pinball to play, man. It's that movie that we played at Dan Merrill's birthday party some night that he DJed at Sunshine Laundromat for his birthday, that he was the DJ and the birthday boy. It's Pinball Summer, and Pinball Summer starts on Monday. It actually started last Monday. Eric has a laser disc of it, it looks like. Maybe it's actually the record player, the record of the soundtrack. Yeah, it's the record of the soundtrack framed and it hangs on my wall. Oh, very good. But it's Pinball Summer and Barcade Brooklyn Pinball season. It started last Monday. It will continue this Monday. I presume that there will be two seasons of it across the summer based on the number of weeks it will take. It should be over just about the time that Pinball NYC is starting back up in the fall. And that said, here we are. Finals will be at the end of June. It'll be the second meeting this week, and you can assume that it'll be every Monday at Pinball 8 o'clock at Arcade Brooklyn. Matt Grady will lead the way. Jonah Schlaes will help manage the chaos. I would also like to flag that there are team leagues that meet on Monday night. There is usually one that happens in Park Slope that will probably start with a small number of team captains who have a draft. That is to say, the only way you can guarantee that you're on a team with your homie is for you and your homie to be captains of a team together because otherwise you might be drafted to someone else's team. But you can get out there and meet a bunch of people if that's what you're up to. If you're hearing this and you've been thinking like, man, I want to be on one of those Monday night pinball teams every fall. Some of the folks who join up in the team league throughout the fall and spring are the folks who joined a summer league just because they were around playing pinball at one of these venues. So Buttermilk is almost surely going to be one of the homes of the South Slope jam. No Bro Summer League, according to Facebook, will be every Monday starting at 7.30 p.m. There is a draft party Saturday, June 14th, so that will also seemingly be drafted. The season is June 16th through August 4th with finals date to be announced. There are apparently individual dues for this and there will be enamel pins seemingly that they're going to try to get for folks. The venues will be Jack Bar, Barcade Williamsburg, potential conflict alert with BBPL, Quarter Club, Sunshine, Scrappleland, and Tempkins. There will be no home bars. So there's going to be all kinds of different rules. All of these summer leagues are a bit more casual. Not this coming Tuesday, but Tuesdays in June, July and August, Summer Tuesdays at Gebhart's will be meeting weekly at 7.30 p.m. Five rounds of match plays plus the finals each week. And that's also an interesting, that's in Manhattan. If you were like, hey, I live in the Bronx, it's hard for me to go to these places in Brooklyn where all this pinball happens. Hey, I live somewhere out of town and it's hard for me to go somewhere that I can't just like go one stop past Times Square to get to. So Gebhard's is your spot and it's at 730. It's it's in you can probably still catch your train home, even if you play five rounds of group match play plus a finals. On this Tuesday, May 26th, Pinball NYC's end of season party will happen at Solid State in Deep Queens. Go get your coaster medals, go get your pint glasses, go get your trophies of the games that you got a high score on this season, and go play some pinball and hang out with your homies. On Wednesday at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint, just at one end of the Pulaski Bridge, Greg Pavarelli and a host of assistants will enjoin the fourth meeting of Scrapple Land's third season of 2026. Scrapple League will continue on with each season generally beginning on the first Wednesday of a month. On Thursday, and I presume every Thursday for the rest of time, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes will be convened at Jack Bar. It starts at 7.30 sharp. Again, 7.30, even though it seems like you're like, oh man, you got to play like 11 rounds to get to the end of that. It's head-to-head match play and also it starts at 730 so you can get home and get some sleep if you're an old man like me. They were the first pinball back from the pandemic and they been there almost every single week since Also on Thursday South Slope Pinball League meets at Buttermilk Bar at Pinball 8 o And that will continue on as the other leagues do. Yeah. This Saturday, and I presume, you know, roughly the last Saturday of every month going forward, The Barcade Phi Di monthly tournament will be convened at Barcade Phi Di starting at 1.30. And also generally on Saturdays, you can look for a South Slope Strikes once a month. Sunday monthlies will include RWI and Silver Ball Sundays at Single Cut. Silver Ball Sundays is almost always the first RWI kind of floats sometimes. As of May 22, 2026, there are 364 pinball machines in New York City at 75 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data, here are machine updates from the past two weeks. On Sunday, May 10, user Aaron Hamlin played the Jaws LE at Scrappleland and said, Need some love. Playfield is filthy and flippers are out of whack. On Monday, May 11th, user Veraco was at Area 141st on the Lower East Side. Veraco played World Cup soccer and said software keeps resetting mid-game. I want to call out the name of this place because there would be a different way to hear it if you didn't see it written down. It is called Area 140 space the word first, which presumably means because I know it's downtown. I assume that it is at 140 First Street. First Avenue? First Avenue. Yes. Sorry. First Avenue because First Street is nonsense. Isn't there a short stretch of 1st Street just by the bridge? Yeah, there's an East 1st Street. I looked this up to confirm while I was editing. It's a very short three-block span East 1st Street that stretches from Katz's Deli to 3rd Avenue. Veraco commented on Monopoly. Quarters don't seem to register credits, but dollar bills do. Monopoly money does not include coins. On Tuesday, May 12th, user ZT Arnold 1 was at Milo's Yard. Of the junkyard, they said Scoop doesn't register around 5% of the time. I love that they played it that much that they're like, I hit it 20 times. It didn't register once. And they let us know that the getaway plays very well. That is the best functioning state of the getaway. I often make the joke that the best functioning state of some game is turned off, doesn't work. Popeye saves the earth is turned off, doesn't work, or on the way out of the bar, or whatever. But the getaway, if someone says it plays very well, I feel like I know that I can get bounce passes I want on it. I know that I can get live catches I want on it. That's what The Getaway plays very well. I love that about The Getaway. Then there's a little lull in activity on Pinball Map. I'm going to opine that it might have been related to the lull in, or rather the mass movement toward Rochester. Over, because this was, let's see, Tuesday, May 12th, that you were talking about, right? And then on Thursday, a big tournament started in Rochester. Okay. And then now, when do we come back? Eight days later, on Wednesday, May 20th, user Bizarro Rollins tried out the Godzilla at Barcade Chelsea. And said, action button is not functioning, but otherwise rolls great. I want that person to be like the opposite of Henry Rollins. I want that person to be like thin and diminutive and quiet and have zero tattoos. I just thought it would be Henry with a mustache. Or a little mole like Constantine versus Kermit. Also on Wednesday, user Danilo commented on the Hot Wheels at the throwback on the Upper West Side. I think the tilt is a bit too sensitive. Got two unwarranted ones. I also want to recognize that could be Danny Lowe. I like Danilo for that because shout out to Nick's mediocre player, Danilo Gallinari. He was actually really good when he was here and he was one of those Euro players that was of the moment. But Danilo could be right, but also that could be Danny Lowe. Not sure. You know, maybe he's picked up pinball as a hobby after his career with the Knicks. Also on Wednesday, the Demolition Man and Avengers Infinity Quest were removed from the lineup of McKenna's Pub where they were functionally unreachable as it's been closed for a while. If you're keeping score at home, Eric said the same number of locations but two fewer games this week. And that means that right now on Pinball Map, if you go look, McKenna's Pub is a zero pin location on the map. Also, where is Upstate Pinball going to put those games? Dun-dun-dun. The location itself will get picked up by the pinball map garbage collection routine at some point on a regular schedule. As it recognizes it sat there for a while with zero, it'll remove the location. Very good. Well, those were the venue updates. Well... Let's hear about your pinball bullet journal. Well, look, you didn't give us one last week at all, and you went out of town. And I'm not going to force you to talk about... Your Monday night semifinals if you don't want to. But I would love to hear about Rochester at least. And then, you know, what happened? My bullet journal will start on Saturday, May 16. But I feel like we haven't heard from you in a minute. And I definitely want to hear about Rochester. I mean, that was your first time in Rochester, right? Yeah, it was. That collection is fucking something, isn't it? It's incredible. It's massive and well-maintained. Everything was near perfect. Yeah. It's a pretty nice room to play pinball in. And set up for elegant competition. You know, TVs in a lot of places that like match play can show up on very easily. The traveling was very pleasant. I took an Amtrak to Hudson, New York and stayed with Lauren and Tim on Thursday evening after work. Did you practice on some of their games on the way? I didn't play any of their games. I was spending time with their bird named Otty, who is very adorable, a green-cheeked conure, like a parakeet, and is quite fond of me. Just wants to constantly sit on me the whole time I'm there. Does she like to shit on you, too? She likes to shit on me, or they. I don't know their gender yet, I think, right? I've managed to avoid getting shit on during my visits with Atti. Well, then maybe they really do like you and they really disliked me. Also, adorable and they can shit on me anytime they want. Yeah, yeah. And Atti's not a giant fan of the pinball machines, so I didn't want to turn any on. I see. So on Friday, Lauren and I drove then from her place up to Rochester. We got there just shortly before the main qualifying tournament began just after five. Yeah. So just, yeah, jumped straight in, had some rough goes of it, especially a lot of the classics are... Yeah, quite challenging. And they are, depending on what you count as a classic, they are somewhere between 30 and 50% of the collection, right? I mean, it's when you get that many pinball machines together, even if like unless you just got every Stern from Iron Man on to today, then it's almost necessarily at least half. It's a good chunk. Yeah. Wood rails. Yeah. Zach's wood rails. I believe he's the only one who brings the wood rails to the collective, but Zach, who talked to us about this exact collection before their end-of-year tournament about a year ago, those wood rails are crazy. There's one sitting pretty, is also sitting at Red Hook. I definitely have played one of Zach's wood rails, I have also played at Red Hook, for sure. Yeah, I definitely found when I was finding any success early on in the tournament, it was on more modern games. I remember getting a first on the 2017 Stern Star Wars. Oh, sure. Yeah. That's a good one to get a first on for me, too. But also, I would be playing the old ones well and the new ones not so well, but that one exceptionally differently, I think. So we got through 10 rounds of the main tournament on Friday evening. Right, right. You do 10 on one and 5 on the other. 10 more. Oh, right. Oh, my God. So it was all Maine on Friday night. It was all Maine Friday night. That's right. Okay. And then you started doing other things on Saturday morning. Saturday morning was the classics tournament. What about, was women's, could women figure out a qualifying situation? Yeah, women's was open, I believe, all day Friday, starting at noon, maybe. And it was then generally open any time that the classics or main qualifying weren't running. Got it. It was a Herb? Yeah. Qualifying? Yes. Herb had group. Hybrid, eight machines, 32 entries, top, your best 10 scores count, so you could get two on a particular, any one game. Got it. So Saturday morning, bright and early, 9.30 a.m. start for the Classics target match play. Did anyone who played in the other divisions, in the main division, skip the Classics entirely and just not show up for the earlier call? Yes. There were a number of people I remember specifically saying, oh, that's too early, I'll just be back for main. See, I would have just played Classics. Because that's when I 930 is is when my brain is working best, man. I've been up for hours. How'd you do in it? I stunk in classics. I asked you at some point via text if you played Skyjump over the weekend. Did you play it in classics or did you play it? I did. You told me you played it at some point and I think you said you enjoyed it and or did well, but was it in classics or just because I sent you a text and was like, go play fucking Sky Jump, it's there. I played it because it was in classics. Okay, so you got assigned to play it. That's right. Yeah, I got last place. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I enjoyed it. Yeah, oh my goodness, it's a fun game. Then in the early evening was the next 10 rounds. That must have been starting in the afternoon. Yeah, that started in the afternoon. The next 10 rounds of the main qualifying, which is followed by the Classics finals, during which the women's tournament qualifying was open. Right, got it. Which is to say anyone who was playing in the women's division and had not qualified for Classics Finals could be putting in their 32 entries, could be putting in their limited pool of entries. Yes, and this would then be the last hours of the qualifying for the women's tournament on Saturday evening. So I didn't make Classics finals. Lauren was putting in her entries for the women's tournament. Right, we said her name too. Was it B? Yeah, third place in B. Nice. Right? Yeah. I think that's right. Which was Sunday morning. So I hung around the place a bit. Cool. Neat old building, the piano factory. Oh, yeah. It was experiencing some leaking problems. Okay. It rained at one point on Saturday, and the stairwell got very wet. I see. Not over the pinball machines. No, nowhere near the pinball machines. The stairwell is far away from where the pinball machines are. For anyone who is not familiar with this architecture, when Eric says, In the stairwell, that means that it was very far away from the pinball machines. And so when Eric says it was leaking and you're like, oh my God, but there are 80 pinball machines there. That is like 200 feet away from where the pinball machines are. I started finally getting a handle on the tournament games in the last five rounds of the main qualifying and did all right there. I had a personal best on volley with 92, 000. That's really good. Yeah, and that was a second place to Raymond Davidson who had 125, 000. And won the A main division. It would go on to win the tournament at large. So it was during that game of volley when Raymond recognized my name and said, oh, hey, I like the podcast. I listen sometimes. Oh, that's awesome. And he was one of a few people who I ran across over the weekend who had recognized me from the podcast. That's awesome. That was nice. Yeah. That's awesome. And then other highlights of the trip. A couple of food items. We went and tried Tim Hortons for the first time. Oh my God, you've never had Timmy Ho's? I think it's the closest to New York City is there in Rochester. They've got a bunch. I mean, yeah, that might be true. But my niece in Nashville works at Timmy Ho's. They're all over the place. Yes, it is absolutely 100% the first thing that you do, that you see after you get through customs, when you get to YYZ, when you get to Toronto's airport, the first thing that you see is Tim Hortons after you get through customs. And it's absolutely perfectly appropriate because it is McDonald's plus Burger King plus whatever in Canada. But also, oh, it's Timmy Ho's. It's just Dunkin' Donuts. It's like exactly Dunkin' Donuts. I mean, their donuts are slightly better. I feel like maybe it's just because the grass is greener, but I feel like their donuts are slightly better. There's a lot more maple involved in what they have to say about your life than what Dunkin' Donuts has to say about your life. I feel like there's also something to the flavor profile of being Canadian. The real standout was the breakfast sandwiches Sunday morning from Holly Cake House. Oh. Which is a few blocks away from the collective and is an all-vegan breakfast place. Crazy. Yeah. In East Rochester, New York, right by the river. There's this vegan breakfast joint. In a sort of abandoned mall kind of place. It's not like a shopping mall. It's more like maybe it was like professional services building, but it's got these giant tile corridors and everything's shut. Or maybe because it's a Sunday. I don't know, but Holly Cake House was open and it was awesome. So, you may recall, if you listened last week to my blathering, that my wife was out of town. Ergo, you certainly just heard us talk about the results whereby we lost at Scrappleland, and these two things are not directly related to one another, outside of the fact that our having lost is a result of our having played at Scrappleland, Which is why I went to Scrappleland a lot this weekend. I went on Saturday. I went on Sunday. On Saturday, I live very near the Franklin Avenue stop here in Brooklyn, which is to say one express or three local stops away from Atlantic Avenue stop here in Brooklyn, One which almost anyone on almost any train line can get to in a very similar way that almost anyone could get to Times Square. Almost anyone could get to Atlantic Avenue Barclays Center. This on Saturday, I went to Atlantic and then I walked above ground a few blocks and got to the G at Fulton Street and took the G up and walked kind of a bit still after the Greenpoint Avenue stop. I was the whole way at the front of the train on purpose because I knew I would be the closest to where I needed to be and be able to come above ground and immediately start walking in the direct, you know, turn right, well, turn left, I think, out of a stairwell. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Yes, exactly. Pop up at India Street and do my thing to get right up to Newtown Creek where Scrappleland sits. And on Sunday, I went on the four, five, four probably, the five wouldn't have run to Brooklyn on Sunday. So I went on the four to Grand Central and took the seven, just one stop into Queens, just one stop across the river and then walked the Pulaski Bridge. On Saturday, when I went, I played the games that I had told the team in our encrypted and copyrighted chat I would play. That were like my top five confidence picks. And they were Gold Strike Gold Strike Gold Strike Gold Strike and Gold Strike Yeah I added Theater Ride of Pinball Bond 60th and No Fear And I played some Pokemon because I thought they would call it. Because I thought it had shown up at their venue after the season was over. And so it should not be excluded. It had initially been listed as should be excluded in the same way that a couple of other games that had shown up at our venue, Diner, for instance, had shown up at Buttermilk after the regular season was over, was initially listed as like, hey, this should be excluded. And there had to be some talks about what should and shouldn't be excluded. But we got, I think, to the right answer. And the fact is that Gold Strike, those were my five confidence picks. Those are the ones that I was like, yeah, I can take that. On Sunday, I came back via the G-Train route, but I played the games that I thought they would want to play. I played Pokemon. I played Pirates of the Caribbean. I played some other things that had been at their venue at times. Or at venues that they had called home at some point that would be possible. And, you know, I enjoyed playing all of the games. I tried to play every game almost. Did you play on Monday after you came back? I didn't. Boy, I was tired. Those were some long days of pinball. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. I was on late Sunday night. Yeah. So yeah, no, I stayed in on Monday. Although I did feel bad then not getting a chance to go by Fight Eye for practice for Tuesday. Well, I don't think you needed to feel bad about pinball. Pinball is for everyone and shame shouldn't be involved in pinball. I'd like to add that as a corollary to a certain degree. So on Monday, I played finals at Scrappleland. I got there, you know, less than an hour before we were supposed to start. I had a lot of fun. I took, because I work on the Upper West Side, I went down to Grand Central and did the seven train thing again. I walked across the bridge. I was wearing a black suit because it will be Memorial Day when most of y'all are listening to this. And I won't wear black suits after that unless I'm at a funeral for a couple of months. And so I was wearing my black suit for kind of the last time this year. One of my black suits for the last time this year. And looked fine. Thank you. We all were cute because we are colliders. I was less sober than I may have liked to have been. I wrote in the script that I was less sober than usual, but the actual truth is that I might have been less sober than I would have liked to have been. And I was fired up in part from just the adrenaline of we're playing finals. And in part because I was annoyed that before the first round and I continued to be annoyed throughout the night. And I was very reasonably sitting on the sidelines while I was annoyed because I would have embarrassed myself. And, you know, if I had been let loose when I was annoyed, certainly in round two, the aristocrats were practicing games after the names were put down on the score sheets. Stern's Pirates of the Caribbean, which I thought they would call, broke before the match. Bram Stoker's Dracula was giving rats out like it was candy. Because of the way it leans? Probably. Just kept falling right over there in that hole on the right because it's leaning to the right because it's on the sloped floor. And that whole row we don't use in Scrapple League. See? And those two are very close to each other right there. Shadow, when I played it on Sunday, was a little bit too flat. I told Allie about it, but the ball was just like sitting on the wire form and the ball search was just going to keep going. And so I also told her like, hey, you're here alone. I'm going to go turn that pinball machine off. She was like, thanks. Yes, don't blow the motors out. Thanks. Arabian Nights lost a ball sometime when someone was practicing. They beat us on it. They got two points on it in round one, but it lost the ball sometime when someone was practicing and it just was done. We couldn't get it to start. So we couldn't have chosen it. We might have, but we did. You know, whatever. That is... Look, Bride's Left Flipper died while I was practicing. That was actually one of my top five. Deadpool's Scoop wasn't kicking out balls, so it was unplayable because multiball would have been like forever. If you put a ball in the scoop in multiball and it's not kicking it out until there's a ball surge, you get to play forever multiball. But even with all of those issues and the excluded games based on our home venues, there were still like 50 fucking games to choose from. And yes, some of those issues cropped up in the middle of the night, but it was so great to have that. Wide of a selection. It was great to, you know, be at Scrappleland doing that on a Monday night. And congrats to the aristocrats. Again, second season in a row. I was a little nervous when I was on the, and I didn't realize it until I was actually getting on the 7 train on Monday night that I might have been not the best dressed person in the room because sometimes Neil shows up in the top hat and tails. And I realized like, oh, fuck, like I could have like packed a garment bag today and been ready to like whip out the fucking tux if that's what it took tonight. Neil wasn't there. Well, I was glad to get the rest Monday night. And then on Tuesday, it was Butterballers at Barcade Fideye getting our fourth consecutive right in lane trophy. Nice. That was poor. Pretty awesome. Yeah. You had you, Eric, had repeated twice on Monday and Tuesday, correct? Three times each on Monday and Tuesday. Oh, so three repeated each. Sorry, apologies to Phil Jackson, who has copyrighted that phrase, I believe, or somebody has. I think it was Phil Jackson. Awesome. So, that was, yeah, that was pretty awesome. I played mediocre to bad in the competition. I was having good warm-ups. What did you play in competition? What were the games? Or what was notable about warm-ups? Also, this is a bullet journal, man. You don't have to tell me about the way that you scored the points or didn't score the points. You could tell me about how you had the fun. I had planned ahead of time that I would concentrate on just two machines that I was interested in playing. So during my warm-up I played those two machines, Kongo and Rush. And Kongo was just like, I mean, I love that copy of Kongo. It's just so nice to me. I had a billion on my warm-up game. Wow. Felt very comfortable with that. I spent then more time on Rush because I was just getting really bad. Warm-up game scores. I think it went 6, 8, 11 until I finally got a 60 or something after that. And I was like, okay, okay, now I'm getting onto it. And then by that time, we're off to start. So we were the virtual away team and selected in the first round. And I asked for Rush to be included. I had just finished it. I was like, let's do that. And Stephen on our team was game to pair up with me on that. Stephen C. And he carried me, thankfully. Yeah, I had six in that game. But his 30-something was enough to beat the combined score of the other team. Right, right, right. They called a couple of games of Congo in the second round for singles. I took one of those and it just ate me alive. As it happened, my opponent, Zach, got well over a billion, I think one and a half, 1.6, something like that, and I wasn't going to get there. Right, right, right. Yeah. Gordzilla sat out the third round and then we won. And then they wanted to play the final doubles round. So Gimely accepted the task of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Oh, sure. That sounds like it. As my partner. Yeah. Like, yeah, sure, I'll do that. Yeah. I had a couple of really incredibly lucky bounces. On both balls two and three, I plunged to the top. And you can select between the top lanes for a plunge award, but you don't have any control over the plunger. It's just going to go into one of them, so you've got to move the light to that one to get it. It was almost always going to the left, which was light select, which is the mystery award. Which it's a selectable. You get two options. You can choose one. Yeah. In a scoop. Fell into the pop bumpers, bounced around, and as it came out of the pop bumpers, hit a post, bounced to the left into the mystery scoop. Oh, how about that? Both times, one of the options was multiball. Nice. So I did that. That's right. Unfortunately, that right ramp is unhittable. Ah. So I got no jackpots whatsoever. And it was a, yeah, not great game of Rocky in Bullwinkle. Franklin and I lost that pairing, but the other pairing was won by Butterballers to make it 11-5 final. And we took a shared card back to Buttermilk. We're looking forward to picking up the trophy on Tuesday. And those coaster metals. Yeah. It's a cork. It's a metal on a lanyard, but it's made of cork. Yeah. They're slightly upgraded nowadays. They're thinner, bigger, and they've got a nicer printing, I think. Cool. But you get those metals and probably some pint glasses. Yeah. Someone might get a trophy for the game that they got the high score on this season or something. I understand Jess Warren is getting two of those for Barcade Fideye games this season. Frontier and Evil Dead. Jess will get the Frontier and Evil Dead trophies. Scrapple League on Wednesday night. Had another good night, 25 again. Yeah, you were back in the New York groove by then, as Ace Frehley might say. You recovered from Rochester. I love that song. I don't, and I don't love Ace Frehley or Kiss, but it is recognizable. Wednesday was the night it rained on the way there. I had checked the Carl Weathers earlier. I hoped that it wouldn't rain until after I got there. But I'm glad I went back and grabbed my umbrella on the way out the door. But I should have changed to my waterproof shoes. It was one of those league five rounds of match play Swiss pairing path nights where I came in last place on the first game. I played Whitewater. Survivors sang a song about this. Oh man, I felt like that upper flipper was a little funky. I think it stuck once or twice and I just could not hit anything up there. So I spent the whole game not hitting anything up there and eventually drained. But so then with the Swiss pairing from there, I was primed and I got three firsts in a row. And I found myself in the top group for the last game, which of course was very tough. Sure, but you had 21 points in three rounds and 22 points in four, so. Yeah, we played Totan. It was Greg Pavarelli, The Storm, and Tomei Tanisovsky. Kanesowski. That Tales was very tough playing. I got a third out of that group. So overall, good night. Contrasted with then Thursday night, South Slope. It was your first competition on the new collection. Is that true? That is true. Yeah, I've been a couple times to play Casually and I certainly haven't played all of the machines yet. Walking Dead hasn't even been turned on until I saw it Thursday night. I found like they were mostly new games to me, playing them. You know, you step up to Twilight Zone sitting where Twilight Zone used to be and it's wildly different. Yeah. It really, it threw us. And much faster. I very much, or I had a decent ball three, could finally start collecting some points, but I grounded out a couple hundred million to get third place. Oh, wow. That would have been one of, that was a group of all second place finishers from round one. Round one, I finished second place, so we were all second. Five-pointers going on in Twilight Zone. But we all decided by Ball 3 that the sensible choice was to go for the skill shot and take your chances out of the bumpers because it's better than the scoop returned. Wow. Okay. That was actually a pretty full week with the travel. Yeah, indeed. Let's talk about Toppers, a new queer pinball club that's been meeting this year at Scrappoland. Kate, where'd the idea for Toppers come from? I had this idea bouncing around in my head for a little bit, really since I started playing pinball. I'm really not a competitive person. I like to do things for fun. I'm not really intense in terms of sports or clubs or anything like that. And I really wanted a place to just like hang out with other people who liked pinball but were maybe not as competitive or even like familiar with pinball. But one of the other, there are a few other reasons for why like we wanted to start this too. And it being, you know, you know, kind of tough political times right now and you're sitting at home and you're like, there's, you know, you want to fix so many things, but there's not always like a million ways to fix all of the million problems that are going on right now. So it was, you know, within the queer community, it's like, how can we give back, like, in ways to, like, the people who need it most right now? So the idea with Toppers was not only could we build more community within, like, the LGBT world, but also a way to give back to, like, charities throughout the season. So each season we pick a charity that we all agree on, an LGBT charity, and then it's a pay what you can donation, right? So like that's the idea of it. So toppers stemmed from this idea of wanting to build community, wanted to, you know, give a small part back in a way that we could, you know, feel good about at the end of the day. And then just also to ball out, right? To have some fun. Totally. Yeah. What got you hooked on pinball? Okay. So this is back in very early January, 2020. Oh my. What a hard time to get involved. What a hard time to find something that I actually enjoy. And that you have to go out to do. Yes, yes. So me and Haley were like walking around. I think we were in Williamsburg going to a music shop or something. This was actually pre-Jade. I moved back that summer to New York and Haley moved from New York, from California. We saw a flyer like for, you know, like a pinball, a pinball group that was that was meeting up. And I was like, OK, pinball. OK. And we both were like, OK, this is great. We had been talking about like needing something to do, making more friends. And I was like, this seems this seems very like low stakes, you know, and something fun. And so, you know, we go to our meetup, had a good time. I think Hales, Hales, you had a good time as well. Had a great time. Yeah. Played some ball. I think we went to two meetups. But then, unfortunately, COVID. COVID hits. Yeah. And so then, like, I took a break for, I mean, you know, COVID happened. And it's like, what were any of us really okay with? But so then Haley for like the couple of years after was like, dude, like you got to go back to playing pinball. Like, I really think you would like it. And I'm like, I got a lot going on, dog. Like we just lived through a pandemic. Like, but Hales kept coming back to it. Like, and was like, no, do it. So then fast forward to like summer 2023, I'm like decided to be single and then I was like kind of lonely. So I would go to before Scrapple Land was Scrapple Land. It was the old brewery. They had four pinball machines in the corner and I got really hooked on Stranger Things because I was kind of lonely. And my best friend was like, dude, I really think you should play pinball. And I would put like a bill like into the Stranger Things machine and just go And then from there like it was like where can we play pinball I want to play more and more and more And I just I mean I really just like fell in love with like the different machines I like that you can play with like by yourself and with other people So it was really just like Haley not giving up on me with it. And they were right. They were right. But you might have a different, Jade might have a different way that she got hooked. I do have a mildly different origin story. Kate and I are a couple. And on our second date, Kate took me to. It was a bar. Thank you. Barcade and Chelsea and thought, you know, this is going to be a nice, fun activity where I get to show off to the girl I'm taking out on a date. And I flipped the script and kicked her ass after having really never played pinball in my adult life. But I was I was pretty much immediately hooked shortly thereafter. The first time I met Haley, we went to Jack Bar and played pinball together. And it very quickly turned into a way for me to get to know Haley better, for us to build our friendship. And then Kate and I very quickly became addicted together and it just became an easy hobby that got us out of the house on the weeknights. I work from home. So getting that outside time and space is a little tricky if you're not going to go out in New York City and spend a bunch of money. But pinball was like both a frugal activity for us to do and something that was fun. And I feel like one of the things I like about pinball is that it's it's easy to get better at. Like you really do see progress the more that you practice. And so, yeah, we became pretty addicted as a couple, as a friendship group here. And I think for me, one of the reasons that we started Toppers and one of the reasons I love it so much is because everybody in our lives that we introduced it to ends up falling in love with it, too. And so being able to create a space for other queer folks to come and enjoy this silly little game that we all love has been really special. I guess similar to like what Kate was saying, we saw that flyer, got into it. I stayed with it because I just I'm probably of the three of us, the more competitive one. I have been to a couple tournaments and I really enjoyed it. So I appreciate this space in its many capacities for partly the reason I get a lot of practice in. I love Sternball too because it's just, it is fun. It's like a perfect mix of like video game, physical game, you know, it's entertaining. It's fun. The art is so good. And yeah, like Kate and Jade were saying, like everyone I introduced to it is like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize this was so cool. Like what's going on? Where has this been all my life? And so it's a really fun way to just connect with each other. I feel like it helped me connect to people more than any other like sport or video game or anything that I've ever done. Pinball has like connected me to people more than anything else. And I feel like that's been a big part of continuing to play is that it's fun and it connects people. So, yeah, that's awesome. I particularly love that for for you, for pinball, for, you know, for anyone for pinball, because pinball is something that you almost necessarily walk up to and ignore the rest of the room while you do it. And to say that, like, it connects you to others is is I mean, I totally agree, but it's also a really interesting phenomenon. How's the club been going? How often is it that you meet, Jade? We meet bi-weekly on Sundays at 4 p.m. at Scrappeland. It has been going really well. I feel like we have a really solid group of core folks who show up fairly often. And so it's been really cool to build closer relationships with those folks. But we also have had friends of ours come to support, fall in love with it, and then continue to come back. We've had new folks come out. We do our best to reach as many people as we can. So we post on Reddit. We posted flyers in our neighborhood and a lot of folks found us just from that sort of marketing that we were doing. It's going really well. We're really proud of what we've created and it's been really fun. I love the Reddit thing. I've never thought of using Reddit as social media, although I'm sure that it's probably a far superior option than most social media these days. Yeah, we've gotten some good traction on Instagram, but it was somebody who came to one of our first Toppers meetups who suggested that we post on Reddit. And Kate is all up in those subreddits for Williamsburg, Greenpoint, any neighborhood that we can find. Kate's posted in there the weekend before a meetup. So it's created a lot of traction for us. That's cool. This has been the like brightest spot of 2026 for me because I was very much like, guys, if it ends up being like the three of us that are just playing like together every other Sunday, I mean, it is a win-win. Like, sure, the most important thing is that we're raising, you know, money for the charity of the season. But, you know, if it's us three, I like playing with these guys, too. But it has really been like absolutely incredible to see the support in people coming back week after week and the feedback of like it feeling like a really welcoming space. I like people are telling me that they feel like safe and comfortable. Isn't that awesome? Like what more could you want in life? You know, as of last Hopper's meeting, we're at $530 for our charity, Transformation Schools. So like it like in my opinion, I feel like it couldn't be going any better. I'm truly like the best feeling in the world. That's cool. Can you tell us more about the charity? For this season, we chose Transformative Schools, which is a really wonderful program. It's a free after school program for trans students, but also trans educators. So it's a safe space for all involved. They have a range of activity from like creative writing to theater to like coding as like some of their after school activities. Their ultimate goal though is to open a trans middle school so like that these educators and trans students have somewhere to go for like their academics each and every day which is really really beautiful and something that's like really like near and dear to my heart as somebody who was working in education and saw some negative things going on. So this one was really special to me. And they're just really doing they're doing incredible work. And we're really excited that we'll see how much we get in the next two meetups, but that we'll be able to contribute to their dream. I understand that there are some organized activities. Eric told me, I think, something about a bingo card situation that happened at the club that aren't exactly pinball, But I'm sure have something to do with the fact that you're standing in a pinball venue. Haley, can you tell us about some of those things and maybe what we might expect if we were to show up at a toppers and play one of these? I'm going to call it a side game for now, but you can tell me more about it. Yeah, totally. So I am the socially awkward one of the group, I will say. And so kind of born out of that vibe of wanting to make sure that people who are coming, who are probably similar to me and all of us a little bit awkward sometimes, Just wanting to make it a space where people can like have a reason to chat and make sure that people know that like, especially because we have people who come who have never played pinball before. Like there's so many people who have come and are like, I've actually never touched a pinball machine. Like I don't know what's going on. So it's nice to have like something where they can have a reason to talk to somebody else. So that's kind of like the goal with those kinds of things is like, yeah, how do you start that conversation? Oh, here's a bingo card about like find somebody who in the last week has like gone to a concert or has a pet, you know. Oh, I see. It's a human bingo card. It's not you. You are you're supposed to connect with someone for to fill out a bingo space. I understand. I thought it might be like play one Williams pinball game. I thought it might be a bingo card like that, but I actually really like the human connection element of it. Are they all like that? With a human connection thing? With a find somebody or a do something with someone? These side games? Because Toppers is rooted in the idea of building community through a game that we all love. We wanted to commingle those two ideas of let's bring gameplay into this, but let's also foster connection between folks as well. And so to your point, yes, there was a very like human element to it. We had spaces that were cross us off if you find somebody who watches RuPaul's Drag Race. But then there was also one that was, you know, check us off if you got multiball, you know. So there were elements of both within the bingo gameplay that I think ended up being really fun. People enjoyed it a lot. I also enjoyed it a lot. I feel like I got to know some of our members who have repeated and come more often through that game even. Awesome. Yeah, I think it's been like something that's important to all three of us. And while we might not have like a side game every single week, it's just something that like I definitely feel like a social person. But then if I'm going to try something new for the first time where I might not know anybody there or it's something that's, yeah, like not. But in my comfort zone, I need like a warm up of something. Like if I then was to link up with someone during like a bingo round, like then like it's like, oh, yeah, let's go play a game together for sure. So I think it's a way to ease everybody in. Something else that we like to do at every meetup is we have a really big bowl of candy. So if like the side games aren't drawing people in, we have like fun nostalgic snacks like Pez and fruit roll ups. So if they're not interested in bingo, then at least maybe there's a ring pop there for them. Or even a sticker, which we also keep by the candy. They're good quality stickers. Thank you. I put one on my hoodie at one of the early meetings. It's still there. It's just stuck on. Shout out to our sticker company. You all have these awesome custom baseball jerseys. Where do they come from and where are they going? So, Toppers was an idea for a long time before it came to fruition. This was a passion project that Kate had talked about wanting to get off the ground for, I would say, at least six months before our actual first meetup. And so in the later half of 2025, as we the three of us started to brainstorm ideas and things, I feel like it was getting backburnered a little bit. And so my idea to sort of give us a kickstart to create Toppers itself was to create these custom jerseys. And I gave them to Kate and Haley as a Christmas gift. And I think it also is helpful because when folks who are new come to Toppers, they can find the three folks who are involved. They know which one of us is which. They know who's in charge. It's so smart. Who to talk to. That was exactly my idea. You stand out. Like, wow. So, you know, thanks. Yeah. So that was that was where the idea was was birthed from. It was just sort of a let's kick this thing into high gear. Now that we have merch, we got to make it happen. It'd be so silly for these cool custom jerseys to sit in our closets with nowhere to wear them to. So that was my idea is just that it would sort of give us all the push to make this little dream that we had a reality. It was very much like I used like Canva for the first time, like a month maybe before Christmas and was like, well, if I make a logo, then there's no stopping me. And I was like, Kate, sit down. Like, I've never really had like a big idea where I was like, oh, I can make this work. And then come like Christmas, like the weeks leading up to it, Jane's like, wow, I can't wait to give you a Haley your Christmas presents. I'm like, yeah, no, you're really good at gifts. And she's like, no, this is going to be real special. And we opened those and I literally looked to Hales and was like, oh, oh, we really got to do this now. And then I think I sent the email to like Scrappleland the week later because I was like, oh, we're kind of official now. Oh, merch makes things official. Yeah. You know, wear the clothes of the job you want. That's right. Yeah. But I understand you're doing some sort of giveaway of these jerseys. Everyone is coming, right, and spending their time, spending their money and hanging out with us and donating. And we just wanted to, like, have something there because people always, like, comment on the jerseys, too, I feel like. So it's really fun to be like, hey, look, you can get one, too. Like, come see what's up. Come be part of it. And like, so, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that does it justice. Feel free to jump in. But a fun idea to get people more involved and excited about showing up. Yeah. I think, too, it was a way to incentivize our fundraising efforts as well. We had a specific goal of wanting to meet that 500 marker. And so because of the fact that we got so many fun compliments and people were so kind about the jerseys in general, and we had a lot of people coming to us saying, I want one. How do I get one? So this idea was sort of birthed from that series of events of people saying they wanted one and us wanting to incentivize for more fundraising. And so the idea is however much you donate, you get that number of tickets. They go in a drawing and then, yeah, in two weeks or two after two meetups at the end of June, we're going to draw a name and somebody will win a custom jersey. So, yeah, look, every fucking jerk can go get a WNYC tote bag, but only one person is going to have their donation incentivized by a topper's jersey. That's exactly right. Don't get me wrong. Go get a WNYC tote bag, too, or at least donate enough to do it. But but also there's only one of these. That's right. That's all I'm saying. You know, you keep saying season. How long is the club's season? And I presume that there is a next season that would be planned. What would be the length of a season for the club? This season, next season, what's that look like? We don't have like a finite like set of like weeks in a season because when we launched in January, we had like a like a three meetup trial just to like, you know, see how it was going. I was like, yeah, of course, that makes so much sense. That was until the end of February. And then we came back officially March 8th until the second week of June. So as like the spring, like that encompass spring, because technically June 21st is the first day of summer. That's right. So I was really trying to like lock in. And then I was like, you know, I hope we get to, you know, this summer. And then lo and behold, shout out to Allie at Scrapple Land, our hero. She was like, let's keep this going. And I was like, yes, please, let's keep this going. I want to do a summer season. So in the next couple of weeks, we'll be finalizing like our summer dates between the three of us and with Scrappleland. We'll take a few weeks off in between the spring and the summer session. Summer session, like most like summer seasons of things, I think will just be a little bit shorter. Everyone can stay tuned via our Instagram at toppers with a Z pinball. So we're just mapping out those seasons now. And your neighborhood Reddits in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, it turns out. And our neighborhood Reddits, which I think that I'm posting correctly. I think I'm learning Reddit one day at a time. Kate and Jade and Haley, thanks so much for coming on and telling us more about toppers. One last question. When's the next one? It is Sunday, May 31st at 4 p.m. at Scrappleland. And everyone come on over. So not this Sunday, the next Sunday, May 31st. Awesome. That will actually when this is released, that will be the the next Sunday because we'll release on Sunday night. So that that will be the very next Sunday from when you're hearing this, if you're listening to it in the first week, it's been released. And there will be then one more in this season on June. Yes, June 14th will be the last one of the season where we will be pulling our special raffle winner. Right. And you you presumably then have two more chances to get a raffle ticket. Is that right? You each time you donate, you can get a raffle ticket. That's right. Is there anything else that y'all would like to say? Toppers is meant for for everyone. Everyone is invited to the party. And yeah, we're really, really grateful that you guys invited us on today. I'm really happy to, you know, talk about Toppers at any time. Thank you for giving us the space to do so. Thank you for for coming. All of you. I also would just like to say a special thank you to Eric. Like we knew of you in the pinball community prior to you coming to Toppers and it was special and cool to have you there because, you know, again, we didn't know what this club was going to be. But to see that there are more serious competitive pinball players who also want to come and build community and enjoy the game of pinball without there being that competitive element has meant a lot to us. And so big special thank you to you, Eric, for supporting us from the get go and to bringing us on today. It's been such a joy to get to talk to you guys and to get to know you better. And I feel like there's a cool copacetic thing that happens at Toppers where because we are more hobbyist type of pinball players, when folks like you come to Toppers and join us, I learn so much about each individual game, about gameplay, about technique, about just so many elements of the game. So I am very grateful for your presence and for you wanting to lift up toppers specifically. So thank you for all that you have done for us. I'm touched. Thank you so much for saying. Yeah. I retweet everything both of them just said. That was beautiful and I agree 100%. And so also very appreciative of this space and y'all as well. So, yeah. Thank you, Amy. We have a mantra around here. Pinball is for everybody. Preach. That's all for this week's pod and this season's pod. I'd like to congratulate Lion Persons, The Aristocrats, Neptune's Treasure, and Butterballers on their Pinball NYC wins. I would like to encourage everybody, reach out to your teammates if you're not already on a summer league team. You can find one either in North Brooklyn or in South Brooklyn. Someone on your team probably knows about it. I'd like to thank everyone who joined us as a guest panelist this season. Rob Adler, Greg Pavarelli, and today's guest panelists, the organizers of Toppers, Jade and Kate and Haley. I would especially like to thank Eric for joining me on this journey this season and keeping NYC Pinpod alive up until this point. If Eric hadn't jumped in to do the second season of it, I never would have, I think, come back to do the third through sixth seasons of it. Hopefully NYC PinPod will be back in the fall. Between now and then, whatever you're up to out there, pin folk, from the bottom of my heart, go get them. You know what's in Canadian sausage? What? A lot of coriander. There's no joke there. It's just there's a lot of coriander in Canadian sausage.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: d3197294-90a7-4b97-b340-87bed9780b06*