Correspondent photos / Sean Barron.... Pinball players from across the U.S. converged on Girard-based Past Times Pinball & Video Arcade to compete Saturday and Sunday in what has been billed as Ohio’s largest pinball tournament.

GIRARD — The 1971 Fifth Dimension hit “Love’s Lines, Angles and Rhymes” partially describes Jessica Homer’s relationship with playing pinball — at least as far as the love and angles are most concerned.

“I’ve learned response time and to catch the ball with the flippers,” Homer, 32, of Cleveland, said. “Nudging and tilting, I’m still working on.”

Homer, a pinball lover and enthusiast, thanks in large part to her boyfriend’s interest, put that love to the test via being among the estimated 100 players from 11 states who competed Saturday in what has been billed as Ohio’s largest Mega Match Play at Past Times Pinball & Video Arcade, 419 N. State St.

The top 40 point earners qualified to compete in the tournament Sunday. They spent Saturday earning the points and trying to advance in the rankings of the International Flipper Pinball Association, a competitive pinball organization that started running tournaments in the early 1990s.

Homer, who began playing in 2022 and more seriously last year, recalled that her boyfriend became intrigued with two machines, one with a Godzilla design and the other depicting the Ultraman character.

Also among the competitors was Stephen Prusa, 28, of Middleburg Heights, who was the 2022-23 Ohio state pinball champion.

“I watched tutorial videos on YouTube and practiced,” he said. “It was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can do this.’ The more I played, the more I was attracted to it.”

Prusa’s adeptness, however, doesn’t stop at the end of a pair of flippers. In addition to playing since he was 18, Prusa also repairs and restores machines as a major part of his business, Prusa Pinball LLC in nearby Berea.

In addition, he used to play card games, which morphed into an affinity for pinball and eventually led to Prusa joining a league that initially had 40 to 50 others. Today, that league has grown to 100 to 150 members, he said.

Prusa’s advice to pinball novices and aspirants is to simply continue playing and developing quicker reaction times, as well as studying YouTube videos on game techniques and strategies.

On Saturday, players — some from as far away as California and Washington state — competed in 30 games and 20 rounds, and were matched in groups of four, Mike Hale, Past Time’s director and tournament overseer, noted. First- and second-place finishers earned 5 and 3 points, respectively; 2 points were awarded to third-place finishers and 1 to those who came in fourth, Hale explained.

“This tournament has the most points of any tournament in Ohio, so that also helped us sell this thing out in four minutes,” he said.

For the past five or six years, pinball has been “on a rise” in popularity, and having established a point system has added to the draw, Hale said. He added that some of the nation’s top players converged on Past Times on Saturday.

Another boon for the business is that it’s about midway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, both of which have a high number of players, he continued.

“It’s a passion that got out of control,” Robert “Rob” Berk, owner, said, referring in part to the fact that his business has more than 1,000 pinball machines and arcade games on the floor and in storage.

Berk added that his 40th annual pinball expo will be Oct. 17 to 19 in Chicago and is open to players, collectors and enthusiasts. In 1985, he started the event to largely honor pinball artists and designers, many of whom are little known and receive virtually no recognition for their work. Approximately 100 people attended the first expo, Berk recalled.

For more information about the expo, go to www.pasttimesarcade.com, or email Berk at brkpinball@gmail.com.

Saturday’s tournament also was live-streamed on Twitch, so those interested can view it at twitch.tv/NEOpinball.

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