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Although the video age of the 1980s pushed pinball to the margins of popular culture, Sharpe says it remains in a class by itself. Even Nintendo's new Wii system doesn't match the multi-sensory experience of pinball, he says. "That experience is different every time you play, which might not be the case when you're playing your video game. There is something spontaneous, something that is unexpected. From that standpoint, it's kind of like a sport."

Pinball even has its own governing body, with directors in nine countries. The International Flipper Pinball Association sanctions tournaments around the world. Sharpe's sons Josh and Zach run the IFPA, and in 2006 they created a way to rank players. One has to participate in tournaments to earn points toward the World Pinball Player Rankings.

Sharpe hopes world-class competition will attract a new generation, and pinball will rise again. "The players," he says, "are going to be the ones that make it happen."

For three years Carol Walker planned to surprise her husband with the perfect gift for his 40th birthday. She was willing to spend more than $1,000 to get Steve his very own pinball game. But not just any pinball game. No, it had to be one of his favorites: the much sought-after Twilight Zone. When Carol at last found the game, she broke the news to her neighbor, Lisa Hosey, who recalls, "Carol was so excited. She said, 'Lisa, I found a Twilight Zone!'" At the time, Lisa was unfamiliar with the Walkers' quirky hobby. "I'm like, 'What's a Twilight Zone?'"

After five years of living near the Walkers on Jefferson County's Lake Montowese, Hosey knows that pinball plays an important part in her friends' lives. She notes that two years ago the couple traveled to Germany to play in a tournament, and that pinball has inspired Steve's songwriting. ("It's a silver-ball dream/I think you know what I mean.") Each New Year's Eve, the Walkers invite friends to their rec room, which now houses three pinball machines, for a competition they call "The Battle for the Item of Pinifigance."

Steve Walker, a 45-year-old research scientist, has played pinball since he was a teenager, but didn't start building his social life around it until he went to his first tournament in 1995. After years of flipping balls in solitude, he found himself among 800 other people who loved pinball. Finally, he met people who could teach him things about the game. "There was a play called the 'loop pass' that I thought I'd invented," he recalls. "I called it the 'orbital drop pass.'"

Pinball continues to intrigue Walker. "I don't care what game it is," he says. "I just want to figure out how to win on it."

While the talkative Walker imparts snippets of pinball wisdom, his taciturn buddy John Miller focuses on playing the game. Crouched slightly with one foot forward, Miller calmly works the flipper buttons. The silver ball comes to a complete stop before he carefully takes aim. Miller's control over pinball games has been earning him an audience since he was a teenager, hanging out in the arcade at Chesterfield Mall or Six Flags.

Miller has a knack for games in general, but he says he stuck with pinball because it gave him more bang for his quarter. "It was just an economical way to keep my money going," he says, noting that as a kid he earned all of $5 to mow his neighbor's half-acre lawn.

Considered St. Louis' premier pinball wizard, Miller is legendary for frustrating the high-score ambitions of other players. He enters his first two initials, J.R., on the scoreboard of nearly every game he encounters. "Every time I went to a bowling alley, I'd see this monster score that only God could get," says player and collector Brian Bannon. "I thought, 'Who the hell is J.R.?'"

At 41 years old, Miller says what is most satisfying about the tournament pinball scene is its camaraderie. "I'd like to win one of the big ones," he says, but "at this point I don't believe it's going to happen. You've got to concentrate for long periods on end. You've got to react at any time. It's kind of draining."

"The ball may die, but if the player's performance has exceeded certain required levels of quality, he can bring it back for a new life and the opportunity to strive for yet another rebirth, in an endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth similar to the Zen Buddhist concept of Samsur."

— from Pinball Wizardry by Robert Polin and Michael Rain

When Polin and Rain published their players' guide in 1979, pinball was the game. The Who had made the central character of its 1969 rock opera "Tommy" a pinball wizard. Today, only one company, Chicago-based Stern Pinball, produces new games. It releases three to five new titles and manufacturers about 12,000 machines a year. By way of comparison, the defunct pinball-maker Williams Gaming produced more than 20,000 copies of its 1992 hit The Addams Family.

The collector's market soared after Williams closed its pinball shop in 1999. As a result, a favorite like Medieval Madness (which would have cost an arcade $3,200 when it was brand-new in 1997) now goes for $5,500, even in fair condition, says Sanderson, who has purchased and sold 200 pinball machines over the past six years.

It's not uncommon for collectors to have dozens of pinball games, but after amassing upward of 200, the 46-year-old Eric Sciuto is feeling a little overwhelmed. "This is my love," he says dryly, as he surveys his overstuffed basement in St. Peters. Some of his pinball specimens belong in a museum's collection. Sciuto has Grand Slam, a baseball-themed game from 1934. He has Carnival Queen from 1958, which is essentially a mechanical version of Bingo, swallowing as many nickels as a player wants to gamble. At one time he even owned Humpty Dumpty, the first pinball game with flippers.

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