Friday Fun Facts – World Pinball Championship Edition

My Father brought to my attention last weekend that the International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA) World Championship recently took place in the humble agrarian town of Cokato, Minnesota.  He suggested that I Blog about it, and since he wears the Daddy Pants, I decided it would probably be a good idea. I figured it would be a bunch of obese, sweaty, forty-somethings in a garage littered with empty cans of Mountain Dew and KFC Double Down wrappers, but there was a pretty wide range of ages and nationalities involved, with 13 countries and 64 players represented. And it was in a barn, not a garage. Why they would host this event in Cokato, I do not know.

Let’s meet some of the participants, shall we?

-Brothers Josh and Zach Sharpe of Illinois. The self described “Venus and Serena” of pinball, they are ranked number 4 and 5 in the world, respectively. Does this make Louis and I the Meryl Streep and Susan Sarandon of Blogging? It’s quite possible that we may never know.

-Bowen Kerins of Boston, who was attempting to three-peat this year. For some reason the IFPA has not updated their site to tell who won yet, and I am NOT going out of my way to find it. But I’m sure he traveled for a long time in his cah while eating a lot of gahlic and thinking about Fenway Pahk. (I love Boston accents.)

-Josh Henderson of Illinois, age 12, was the youngest pin-baller to compete.

-Some guy from Japan.

-Bob Matthews of Thousand Oaks, California, 55 years young, was the oldest silver-baller in the tournament.

-Oh, I found the champion. Daniele Celestino Acciari of Italy defeated Michigan-ian(?) Andy Rosa in the finals. Acciari was awarded $1,000 and a new pinball machine. So after traveling all the way here, and now burdened with shipping a brand new pinball machine all the way to Italy, I’m pretty sure he lost money on this whole deal.

-Jorian Engelbrektsson, 28, of Sweden, who is ranked #1 in the world, came in at a paltry 5th place. The Swedish never have been known to crank up the intensity when the cheese is on the table.

-One of the articles I read informed me that pinball used to be illegal in major cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York up until the ’70’s because of its use a gambling device. I did not know that.

Well, today’s Blong is an old school cut. I don’t know why I thought of this, but it is a good one. K’s Choice – Not an Addict. I seem to remember this song wafting out of my Big Sister B’s room when I was young. Good stuff.