Pinball, Roger Sharpe and Family
From NBC, Pinball historian Roger Sharpe and Family
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Video Transcript
I think that those people who are not
intimidated by round object and batting
a ball around uh can have a lot of fun
with pinball and I think what you have
is something that's much more physically
interactive than
video many people looked at pinball in
general across the board as being games
that were gambling games and not games
based on skill and in 1941 Fe LaGuardia
in New York I want of taking an ax to
not only pinball machines but also Juke
boxes and other devices and outlawed the
games and uh that really resulted in uh
not only the abolition of pinball being
made available in New York City but uh
also in other areas Los Angeles Chicago
uh other communities in uh April of 1976
I testified before the New York uh city
council uh of my testimony uh was also
to demonstrate that the games were based
on skill and W up playing before the uh
City Council Members they said fine
that's it and uh the city council in
April of 76 uh voted 6 to Zer and uh
without any vanity at all then mayor
Abraham beam uh signed a legislation on
my birthday of that year uh August 1st
to uh to legalize pinball Chicago soon
followed at the end of 197 76 and uh
pinball was effectively available in
most every place in the United States my
sons grew up with pinball machines when
they were babies and infants uh to watch
them when they were small playing a game
and just having some fun with it to now
a point where they're young adults and
playing at a totally different
level probably I think I won my first
real tournament against you know the
best in the world in 2005 so has hasn't
even been you know that long ago that I
started excelling I guess a little
better than I was in the
past and now going back to the
principle while you're doing this going
for you know every time I'm asked a
question and and they're talking about
Pinball it's ding D ding ding ding ding
and scoring reels going and I mean
