Kate Bradshaw

A decade in, this ‘league of their own’ has transformed the world of competitive pinball.

With fingernails that match the color of flipper buttons, a female contestant competes in the women’s pinball tournament at California Extreme, the annual classic arcade games show at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, Calif., Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

By Kate Bradshaw

This story was first published in The Mercury News on Sept. 26, 2023.

When you’re talking bumpers, flippers and gobble holes, you might not immediately picture a woman releasing the plunger. At least you didn’t a decade ago when an Oakland player decided to make the competitive pinball world a more inclusive space. Today, this “league of their own” has transformed what once was a niche hobby into a wildly popular pursuit that welcomes everyone.

Echa Schneider fell for pinball in 2013, playing at Oakland’s Radio Bar every day after work. But while she loved pinball, she didn’t love being one of the few — and sometimes only — women at competitive pinball events. She was sidelined, dismissed or told she was “good for a girl.” Even the vintage pinball machines that lined arcades, bars and competitive events portrayed women as cartoonishly sexualized.

So Schneider launched a competitive women’s pinball league of her own, The Belles and Chimes.

The first Belles and Chimes event that same year drew about a dozen players — and swift pushback from some male pinballers.

“It was shocking to me how controversial the idea was,” Schneider says.

Full story here.