This story is part of an occasional KCUR series called The Regulars, about Kansas City’s neighborhood hangouts and the customers who bring them to life.
A constant clacking of flippers, mixed with an occasional werewolf howl from the “Monster Bash” machine, greet any who enter the 403 Club on a Thursday night.
The Kansas City, Kansas, pinball bar first opened in 2011 and moved to its current spot on Strawberry Hill in 2014. It’s long hosted an open pinball league, but players say the local pinball scene was mostly dominated by men.
That is, until this past spring, when a group of players at the 403 Club created a dedicated Women’s Pinball League, the first of its kind in the Kansas City area.
On the November night that opened the league’s latest season, 67-year-old Pearl King caught up with the other women as nearly a dozen players slowly filtered into the bar.
For a moment, the 11 colorfully flashing pinball machines were quiet. But King, who’s played in the women’s league from the start, knows they won’t stay unattended for long.
When the games are humming and the music’s bumping, King says the 403 Club has a “lively” atmosphere.
“I love this place. I was with the owner when he first opened it,” King says. “It just has a neighborhood bar kind of feel.”
The league is an eclectic mix, most obviously in age. Their generational range is part of what makes this community so special, explains organizer and player Karli Cash, 42. She began playing pinball roughly two years ago.
“I absolutely love getting to know these women. It’s incredible. They’re from all walks of life,” says Cash. “It’s the only place I’ve ever been in my life where I can hang out with somebody in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, all in one room.”
Eva Gatlin, 21, is one of the younger players of the evening. She wishes that more people her age would get into pinball.
“It’s really cool to have a bunch of women gather and do something that’s really male dominated typically,” she says.
Gatlin has played at the 403 Club for roughly a year, and frequented Solid State Pinball Supply in Kansas City, Missouri, before then. At first, she said her rounds didn’t last very long, and she burned through quarters quickly. She only focused on hitting the flippers rather than aiming — and each machine has its own rules, layout and quirks.
“I would spend so much money,” she explains, laughing.
Gatlin says she’s grown more patient: Sometimes you have to wait until the very last moment to decide which flipper to use. She also worries less about losing the ball now, concentrating instead on learning the ins and outs of the machine at hand.
Before long, the noise in the 403 Club has risen to the promised levels of liveliness. The groups cycle through a wide menu of pinball machine offerings: “Godzilla,” “Attack From Mars,” “Stranger Things.” During league play, every player gets a turn on four different machines, playing three balls on each.
Isabella Dell, 37, the league’s most recent champion, has been working the “Star Wars: Fall of the Empire” machine. She wears repurposed biker gloves that cover each hand until the knuckles.
The gel padding provides an important cushion for pinball’s more physical aspects, she explains, like crucial “slap saves.” That maneuver involves smacking a machine’s buttons to shift the flippers just enough to catch a ball headed for the middle.
Dell’s pinball prowess extends far beyond the 403 Club. She’s ranked 5,351th worldwide and 562nd in the women’s specific category by the International Flipper Pinball Association.
“Pinball’s not just for men. It’s for everybody,” Dell says. “It’s always been that way, despite what some of the older machines' artwork might depict.”
TVs off to the sides of the pinball machines display the evening’s scores. The season has just begun, and some are already riding higher than others.
Ellen Mushock, 66, explains that her night didn’t go as well as she hoped.
“I need to pay more attention. I kind of have a little bit of old-people-ADHD,” Mushock says with a laugh.
At the top of the scoreboard sits Cash. It’s the first time she’s ever done quite so well. She hopes that at the end of this season, she’ll have a trophy like Dell’s. She wants to put the award on her desk at her office job as a conversation piece.
“I’m gonna make it very ostentatious and ridiculous,” she explains.
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