Pinball

THE BIGGEST legal gambling game in Baltimore is, of course, the Maryland State Lottery, which just paid out $20 million to a single winner.In 1938, the biggest legal gambling game was pinball. It paid winners in metal slugs, each redeemable for items like kewpie dolls, cigars, boxes of candy and radios.Pinball was Baltimore's gambling fascination of the late 1930s. An observer describing its popularity wrote: "Go around the corner to the drugstore or tavern or hotel lobby and you will find one or two or 10 pinball machines and a crowd around them.

Baltimore's year-old National Pinball Museum, a pinging, clanging, tilting tribute to the flipper machines that have been mainstays of American popular culture for decades, will be shutting its doors March 3. The museum, which re-located to Baltimore from Georgetown in January of last year, has once again fallen victim to the terms of its lease agreement, owner David Silverman wrote in an email Tuesday evening to supporters. Silverman, whose 600-plus machines formed the core of the museum's collection, said he could not afford to keep it open.

The name "Pinball" conjures up visions of a little ball ricocheting off obstacles in an electrifying fashion while quickly piling up points.It seems a perfect fit for Toronto Argonauts all-purpose back Mike "Pinball" Clemons, who poses the biggest threat to the Baltimore CFLs' defense tomorrow night at Memorial Stadium.At 5 feet 5 and 170 pounds, Clemons gave the CFLs a quick introduction to his elusive nature in the season opener at SkyDome July 7, when he ran back one punt 68 yards for a touchdown and had another TD punt return nullified by a holding penalty in the Argonauts' 28-20 loss.

Of the machines visitors to the National Pinball Museum will be able to play, here are founder david Silverman's three favorites: Big Bang Bar (1996) "To me, it's one of the best-designed packages that I've ever played," he said. "Everything just works smoothly, design-wise, artistically, skill-wise, everything. It also has great humor and fantastic artwork. " Fireball (1972) "It was my first game. It's the first multi-ball and spinning-disc game that I played.

TOKYO -- On a street of stolidly upper-middle-class apartments, a shop window is filled with familiar Tokyo icons: Revlon lipsticks, Shiseido skin creams, Christian Dior scarves and Issey Miyake belts.Inside, the ceiling is painted with angels and cherubs. French impressionist prints line the walls. A "relaxation room" at the rear is lined with gilt-edged mirrors, makeup lights and hair driers. A massage chair gives off the sound of birds chirping and the fragrance of lilacs.Is this any way to run a pinball joint?

County police have confiscated 12 video poker and pinball machines that they say were used for gambling at two American Legion halls in Severn and Glen Burnie.In raids Monday police also seized more than $70,000. Authorities made no arrests but said their investigation is continuing."We do spot checks on bars consistently throughout the year," said Sgt. Thomas A. Suit, supervisor of the vice unit. "We noticed machines in these particular places."Police said they received many complaints about the machines in the two legion halls as well as at other bars and clubs throughout the county.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- For two weeks, the Buffalo Bills made it look as easy as pinball, running up points, winning free games. All that changed yesterday, when their no-huddle machine nearly went "Tilt" in a 23-20 squeaker over the New York Jets.This is indeed a dynamic team, but let's not proclaim it the greatest offensive force in NFL history just yet. Yesterday's game was a flashback to the Super Bowl, starting with Whitney Houston's recorded version of the national anthem. But these were the Jets, not the Giants, and this time the Bills won.They won even though their defense yielded 388 yards playing an unusual 2-5 alignment without injured linemen Jeff Wright and Bruce Smith.

In this computer-driven, video-mad age, when one version of Sega, PlayStation or Nintendo is updated and out on the market faster than you can say "download," a group congregates in a Columbia industrial park every Wednesday and keeps alive the spirit of a forgotten game: pinball. "It's a throwback to the old days, when you just kind of hung out, and that's what you did," says Sergio Johnson, president and one of four founders of a recreational pinball league in Columbia. The game's appeal also is in entertainment value that has held up for years despite the influx of new and improved technology.

A Senate committee has approved a bill that would put a 5 percent tax on gambling in Maryland, a levy that also would apply to money dropped into pinball machines, video games and video poker devices.Sponsored by Sen. Julian L. Lapides, D-Baltimore, the measure squeaked by the Budget and Taxation Committee yesterday on a 7-6 vote."Of all the things that have ever been proposed to be taxed, if anything makes any sense, this is it," said Sen. John A. Cade, R-Anne Arundel, a co-sponsor of the bill.

The quarter goes in, and then the magic begins. Lights flash, bells ring, balls roll, flippers flip. David Silverman is in pinball heaven. And he barely had to walk out his back door. For some 25 years, Silverman has been buying arcade pinball machines, those gaudily colored, delightfully cacophonic games of skill that involve a steel ball, a bunch of rubber bumpers amid a sea of flashing lights and a pair of electronic flippers that serve as the only thing between million-point success and hole-in-the-floor oblivion.

When it comes to pinball, Washington's loss is Baltimore's gain. The National Pinball Museum, unexpectedly and unceremoniously kicked out of its Georgetown location last summer, opens Jan. 14 next to Power Plant Live. Soon, in addition to checking out Port Discovery , eating a good meal and listening to some live rock 'n' roll, downtown visitors will be able to exercise their wrists and develop the fine art of keeping a metal ball in play without tilting the machine. In a city where John Waters is king and the delightfully quirky American Visionary Art Museum is one of the most vibrant tourist attractions, a museum devoted to pinball should be right at home.

Barry Schwartz got a job scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins in the Mall in Columbia in 1979, just so he could cash in his paychecks for quarters to feed the pinball machines in the arcade. "Pinball was a huge part of my life when I was 16," the Ellicott City resident said between turns in Free State Pinball Association's weekly league play in Elkridge. "It's that whole nostalgic, coming-of-age thing," said Joe Schober, FSPA president, who drives each Wednesday from Great Falls, Va., to play in the 10-week tournaments held at Volleyball House, which has eight machines.

The National Pinball Museum, forced out of Washington after losing its lease earlier this year, will be moving into the Power Plant Live complex. Trucks began moving owner David Silverman's vast collection of flipper-type pinball machines into a building at 608 Water St. Wednesday. Silverman, a Silver Spring-based landscape designer who has been collecting the machines for some 40 years, said he hopes to open for business by the end of November. "We're moving in now," he said early Thursday morning as he drove into Baltimore.

Pinball machines can trace their lineage all the way back to 18th-century France and Marie Antoinette. Who knew those pinging flipper games, with the frenetic metal balls and the constantly blinking lights, had a royal bloodline? David Silverman knew. And beginning Saturday at his new National Pinball Museum in Georgetown, visitors can learn the story of how the Count de Artois invented an early ancestor of pinball, known as bagatelle, on a dare from his sister-in-law, the queen.

The quarter goes in, and then the magic begins. Lights flash, bells ring, balls roll, flippers flip. David Silverman is in pinball heaven. And he barely had to walk out his back door. For some 25 years, Silverman has been buying arcade pinball machines, those gaudily colored, delightfully cacophonic games of skill that involve a steel ball, a bunch of rubber bumpers amid a sea of flashing lights and a pair of electronic flippers that serve as the only thing between million-point success and hole-in-the-floor oblivion.

`Grossology' If you find the gross to be simply engrossing, there's no question you'll be delightfully grossed-out by the new exhibit Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body, running Saturday through April 29 at the Maryland Science Center. With 18 interactive displays and games on runny noses, bad breath, body odors, renal functions, pimples, warts, scabs, the digestive system and other "gross" functions and parts, the exhibit is educational and fun for visitors of all ages.

Pinball was supposed to have died years ago.There were citywide bans in the 1940s that claimed pinball was gambling. There were attacks from Asteroids, Donkey Kong and Pac-Man in the 1980s. But every time, pinball fought back and won a bonus round.This time, though, the game appears headed toward that dark hole between the flippers.WMS Industries, one of the world's last two pinball makers, shut down its production line Friday, leaving only Stern Pinball to make a dwindling number of games.

MARIA'S CARRY OUT, Perring Parkway Shopping Center. Open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday. 661-6820.Every little shopping center seems to have a carryout shop. They all offer just what you would expect: submarines, pizza, Italian dishes and Greek salads. The pizzas aren't perfect but the subs are substantial.Maria's Carry Out fills the bill for the Perring Parkway Shopping Center, just inside the county line in northeast Baltimore. Since the establishments are stretched out in a long line, you'll have to look to find it. But you'll see it a few stores down from the bank at the southern end.Maria's opens for breakfast weekday mornings at 8, offering several "egg and" sandwiches for less than $2.After that, there's two dozen varieties of submarines, ranging from about $2 for a half to less than $6 for a whole.

Soccer. Baseball - from tee-ball to over-35s. Softball - slow- or fast-pitch, for girls, men, women, "fun" leagues, "travel" leagues, teams for male over-60s, leagues with men and women on the same team, even a social league with a goal to woo empty-nesters into playing. Football - flag or tackle, for children or men. Basketball - indoors or outside, children, men, and this winter, for the first time in at least a couple decades, women. Lacrosse - boys, girls or men. Hockey. In-line hockey.