From: jeremym@ravel.udel.edu (Jeremy A Moskowitz)
Subject: Article:The Best Pinball Player... <LONG>
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 19:49:53 GMT

Because you all have given me so much in terms of tips, rules, and general
fun, I decided to get this article to you. This took several hours
to scan, clean up and spellcheck, and it still looks like crap. But,
the continiuity is there. Enjoy it. I know there are problems,
but I'd rather play than clean. Here 'tis.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED November 16, 1992
Printed Without Permission (owell)
---


G A M E S



                       The Best Pinball Player in the
Rick Stetta's tilts with the manic machines are studies in acrobatic assault
                                by MICHAEL FINKEL

       YOU HEAR RICK STETTA 'S TRAILER
even before you see it. Electronic beeps and whistles emanate from
his triple-wide mobile home in the Cape Cod Trailer Court and float south-
ward toward downtown Sunnyvale, Calif. Around the trailer there's an 
explosion of sound and light as 18 pinball machines
nine in the family room, seven on the patio and two in the bedroom 
compete for your attention. And pacing back and forth
amid the din is Stetta himself, the best pinball
player in the world. "I'm trying to stay as
calm as possible," says Stetta, flashing his wife,
Barbara, a panicked look. "But this is the single
most important event of my life I've been pre-
paring for 20 years." It's late January, a few days
before the Professional and Amateur Pinball As-
sociation (PAPA) Inter- national Pinball Champi-
onships are to be held in New York City, and
Stetta, 31, is on the verge of making history. Hav-
ing already won the Intcr- national Flipper Pinball
Association's World Pin- ball Championships and the Pinball Ex-
po's Flip Out, held in March and October, respectively, in Chicago, 
he's attempting to become the first person to take pin-
ball's triple crown.
  And damned if Stctta doesn't look somewhat pinballish: legs as skinny as 
the ones holding up his machines, hands that
twitch like flippers, eyes as big and shiny as the games' eight-ounce 
steel balls. He's as close as one can get to being a pinball
celebrity, and when he and Barbara arrive two days later at the 
Manhattan Sheraton Hotel for the PAPA tournaments quali-
fying round, everyone in the room turns to stare. When he is announced by Steve
Epstein, founder and president of PAPA, as "the man to beat," Stetta 
turns bright red. And when the games begin, his ner-
vousness appears to have eclipsed his
skills.
  In the one-day qualifying round each entrant must play eight different 
pinball games; the 16 highest total scorers ad- vance to the finals. 
Top players consis- tently hit 10 million points per game, but
in the qualifying Stetta begins to drain that's pinball lingo for 
losing balls at an alarming rate. He wins only three million
points on the Surf'n Safari game, two mil- lion points on Star Trek. And there's
some serious draining on Hurricane. "I'm dying," he whispers to Barbara.
  The Addams Family, it seems, is one of the last games left between Stetta 
and pinball ignominy. He takes a few long strides up to the machine, 
wipes his hands on his jeans and pulls the plunger. The
pinball game lights up like a miniature disco, the familiar 
Addams Family theme complete with electronic finger-
snapping sounds - blares through its speakers, and Stetta begins to play.
  Playing, however, is probably the wrong word for what Stetta does. 
Most people stick quarters in a machine, bang the ball
around for a few minutes and hope for a free game. You know, play. 
Things are a tad different with Stetta. As the ball rico-
chets around the playfield, Stetta bounces with it, hopping from one
leg to the other, slapping the flipper buttons open-
palmed, shouting, twist- ing, pirouetting, grimac- ing. One moment he's on
his tiptoes, the next he's down on his knees. His head bobs back and forth, 
he does quick stretches while the ball is in motion, he forms guns with his fin-
gers and "shoots" the machine after especial- Iy high-scoring moments. 
No, Stetta doesn't play pinball. He performs it.
  As he puts on his show, the rest of the competi- tors (there are more than
300 vying for the $1,500 first prize) gravitate to
The Addams Family ma- chine. After five minutes of frenzied
multibal - three balls in play at once Stetta nails the Triple 
Super Jackpot, and the audience bursts into applause. It's a
50-million-point shot, and even the ma- chine seems to need a 
moment to catch its breath; there's an instant of silence before
a lion roars loudly and the scoreboard lights up with fireworks.
His total for the game is 349 million points. With that, a spot in the 
finals is guaranteed.
  Stetta is perhaps the first and only rea- sonably well-known pinball bum. 
He grew up in San Jose and began playing at age 10
when his mother tried to make him take bowling lessons but he refused to 
go far- ther than the bowling-alley arcade. "I was like most young boys: 
I wanted to be champion of the world in something," re- calls Stetta. 
"Though, unlike most, I chose pinball. The game provides the per-
fect balance between physical and mental exertion, and when I was 15,1 
dedicated my life to it."
  Instead of attending college, he played pinball. Instead of pursuing a 
career, he has worked at several 7-Elevens and Taco
Bells as well as at the local supermarket
and played pinball. Now a single game can last him
hours. He often finds himself stuck in endless
games, in which he racks up so many free balls that
he can't possibly use them all, so he simply
turns the machine off. He often dreams of Xenon, a
robot that appears in one of his favorite games.
And his parents, not sur- prisingly, have had diffi-
culty accepting pinball as a career choice.
  "My goal was to prove I am the best player ever," declares Stetta,
"even if I had to settle for just knowing it myself." -
He proved it, all right, but despite being the most
successful pinballer of all time, he has won only $2,125 in cash and $6,000
in prizes in his 16-year career. Oh, and he has also won several pin-
ball machines. Has it all been worth it? "No doubt about it," he says without
hesitation.
  Whereas Stetta has pursued his goal with extraordinary single-mindedness,
pinball's path has followed a more circu- itous route. The game's origins 
can be traced back to the 17th century and a
French game known as bagatelle. The modern game first became popular in the
early 1930s, with a table game called Baf-
fle Ball. Pinball enjoyed some success but soon fell into disrepute 
when some ma- chines began offering cash payouts. Tar-
geted as gambling devices, pinball ma- chines were banned by New York 
City in 1941; to show his disdain for pinball, May-
or Fiorello La Guardia whacked several
machines with a sledgehammer and dumped them in the East River. Other
major cities also banned the game. Pinball remained illegal in New York 
City until 1976, after which it enjoyed a brief up-
swing, until its popularity was eclipsed by video games in the early '80s. 
Pac-Man did as much damage as La Guardia, and once again pinball was in 
the doghouse.
  But about five years ago the video audi- ence began to tire of 
memorizing game patterns and of being at the mercy of the
computer. Many discovered the relative freedom some players call it the Zen
of pinball, and the game's popularity re- turned by 1991. The 
current resurgence has led to the formation in the U.S. of pin-
ball leagues as well as professional tour- naments, which draw 
players from as far away as Europe, Japan and Australia.
 The day after the qualifying round, the finals of the PAPA contest 
begin in Man- hattan's Lone Star Roadhouse. The Lone
Star is abuzz with nervous whispers about pinball strategy, 
technical discussions about how to most effectively nudge the
machine and horror stories about faulty flippers and cruel bumpers. 
In one corner of the room a few players lament the re-
cent trend toward score inflation; it has been a sore issue 
since Bride of Pinbot came out two years ago with the first bil-
lion-point shot. At the other end of the room a debate rages 
over what percentage of a player's score is skill and what percentage 
is luck; the consensus is about 25% luck.
  One thing, however, is perfectly clear: The final all men, most in their
mid-20 are a serious bunch of pin- ballers. All of them unabashedly refer to
themselves as athletes, most are certain that pinball will soon become an 
Olym- pic event, and a few have designed their
own padded pinballing gloves. Stetta has even gone so far as to 
create a special pinball diet: sprouts, grains, nuts, fish, tofu and water.
 Narrowing the field from 16 to four requires five hours of all-out pin-
ball, and the championship round proves that there is no single correct
way to play. Rob Rosen- house, 27, a video-store manager from Morris-
town, N.J., listens to his Walkman as he shoots, his feet planted squarely
on the ground, his hips swiveling like those of a Hula-Hooper. Lyman
Sheats, 26, a software de- veloper from Wayland,
Mass., stands with one foot atop the other, hunched awkwardly over
the machine. William Law, 23, a travel agent from Manhattan, is virtu-
ally motionless. And Stetta, of course, is Stetta.
  In the qualifying round Stetta seemed to be doing calisthenics as he 
played, but in the finals it's full-bore acrobatics, his
hands a blur as they pound the flipper buttons, his feet 
jitterbugging to an out- of-control beat. And when the last ball
drains, the tournament, and the triple crown, are his.
  A final fanfare sounds from the game's speakers, and Stetta rejoices, 
wiping off his forehead and hugging his wife. Then,
with a solemn look on his face, he turns his back on the crowd and 
methodically enters his initials, RJS, into the pinball machine.

Michael Finkel, who lives in New York City, is an
editor at Skiing Magazine. 

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