CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago’s competitive pinball community came out again on Monday night, as members of the Chicago Pinball League flipped, tilted, and slid the silver ball like it was the 1970s.
Inside Replay Lincoln Park, the matchup between Tilty as Charged and the Bad News Babes was one of several taking place amid what some league members described as a pinball resurgence.
“I’ve traveled a lot, and I look for arcades everywhere that I go … I have to say that Chicago, by far, has the best barcades around,” said Bad News Babes co-captain Nikki Greene.
Greene founded the Bad News Babes in 2019 in an effort to have an all-female team competing in what she described as the “male-dominated world” of pinball.
“A lot of the teams are very, very competitive in Chicago,” she said. “A lot of people that you might be friends with at the arcade don’t want you on their team unless you’re really good, so I started this team.”
In the four years since, Greene, who’s a makeup artist for film and TV, said the Bad News Babes have become a popular team in the league and have a waiting list for those wanting to join — including some men.
It’s not just Greene’s team that’s grown in popularity, though. Several league members talked about how the local pinball scene has had a comeback over the past 10 or 15 years, in part because of Chicago’s strong ties to the pinball manufacturing industry.
“Chicago is the home base for so many of those pinball companies, and now a lot of them have come back,” Greene said. “So not only do you have all those pinball companies here, you have the people that work for them — that are some of the best players in the world.”
That said, the league is always open to pinball newbies. Tilty as Charged captain Jen Parrish, who works as a tire installation specialist, said she had a lot to learn when she joined over a decade ago.
“Your level doesn’t matter,” Parrish said. “Nothing about you actually matters other than the enjoyment of the game. You could be any race, any color, any ethnicity … any sexual orientation. It doesn’t matter. We play pinball. It’s about the game.”
Greene said the local pinball community is “just a bunch of nerds” who appreciate the world of pinball. One of Greene’s team members on the Bad News Babes, a Roosevelt University student named Jen, said she found her way in after going on a first date at the Logan Arcade.
“Things didn’t work out with him, but that’s OK because I just really started to enjoy pinball,” she said.
Jen said the games hit her with a wave of nostalgia.
“I remember when I was a kid, like, my dad used to take us to this arcade up in Wisconsin, and he always played Addams Family,” she said. “Addams Family is one of these ubiquitous pinball machines and they, of course, had it at Logan Arcade. For me, it was this memory of, ‘Oh I want to play that. I remember Dad playing that.’”
The Chicago Pinball League meets every Monday night across the North and Northwest Sides and — aside from the cost of the games — is completely free to join.
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