Pinball Knights, a weekly pinball tournament, takes place every Wednesday at 8 pm $5 buy-in, no minors after 9 pm. “Everybody knows your third ball doesn’t mean shit,” Turtles says. It slips neatly between the stalled flippers and disappears down the drain into the guts of the Wizard!
WIZARD PINBALL GAME CRACK
With no concrete understanding of how pinball is scored, I’m dumbfounded to find I’ve somehow managed to shrink the point-gap between Turtles and me.īut as the tension mounts, I crack under the pressure and freeze for a split second as my third and final ball comes screaming down the center lane. “Defining moments in my life happened around pinball,” he adds. “That stupid Black Knight! It’s my grail,” he howls. Father and son bonded over a Williams-made pinball cabinet called “Black Knight” in the early ’80s.īoutin says he’d love to get his hands on that machine again. The lanky Oregonian remembers visiting his old man on weekends in Coos Bay. Insiders who knew about Boutin’s illicit night club brought six packs, crowded around a laptop streaming stolen Blazers games, smoked cigarettes and played pinball till sunrise.īoutin’s pinball love stems mostly from nostalgia. For two years leading up to its grand opening in 2012, Boutin operated a small speakeasy-arcade out of the warehouse at 245 Blair Blvd. Pinball runs deep in Blairally’s genes, says owner Chad Boutin. Pinball Knights emcee Clark Davis says no other bar on the west coast owns as many working EM pinball machines as Blairally, located right in the heart of Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood. Machines manufactured since the mid-1970s tend to be digital at heart circuit boards all but retired electromechanical relay systems and the rolling scoring reel gave way to flashy dot matrix displays. EM machines are gorgeous relics from the bygone analog era that ended shortly after video games conquered America’s arcades.Īesthetic charm aside, the beauty of an EM cabinet is that it has no computerized brain, Turtles says, adding: “If a nuclear bomb went off in Eugene, you could start this thing up and play it the next day.” Wizard! is one of Blairally’s more than 15 electromechanical (EM) pinball machines. Chesty vixens flank Daltrey and Margret flames engulf the world around them. He keeps the ball alive for what feels like an eternity and, when it’s finally slungshot down an “out lane,” he steps away from the Wizard! and says: “Everyone knows your first two balls don’t mean shit.”īuilt in 1975 to coincide with the release of Ken Russell’s film Tommy, Wizard!’s colorful backglass depicts a defiant Roger Daltrey, wearing black sunglasses and white muscle shirt, cuddling a seminude Ann Margret. Turtles promises to tattoo my first name across his right bicep if he wins the tattoo package.ĭespite holding a commanding lead, Turtles generously pretends it’s still anyone’s game. In the past, champion ’ballers have taken home Sandwich League sandwiches, bottles of 2 Towns cider or Whiteaker Tattoo Collective vouchers. Prizes are whatever Pinball Knights organizers can scrape together. They pay $5 to add their names to the bracket.
Usually a dozen or so contestants buy in. Turtles is a regular here, a fixture on Wednesday nights when Blairally hosts Pinball Knights, its weekly double-elimination pinball tournament. Wearing a beard and T-shirt that reads “I’m kind of a big deal,” Turtles’ focus is locked on the dazzling array of lights glowing from a 40-year-old pinball machine called “Wizard!” Two Turtles releases the spring-loaded plunger, and a small steel ball rockets up the chute and begins its arcing trajectory across the candy-colored table.
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