Logan Seidl sees pinball as a way to “release some stress in a retro way.”

For Logan Seidl, a landscaper in Astoria, pinball is a game of defying gravity, which, as stressful as it sounds, is a way he relaxes.

Recently, Seidl decided to organize a pinball club, something he felt the pinball community needed.

Seidl and his wife, who moved to Astoria from Nevada, spent a lot of time playing pinball at Galactix Arcade & Taphouse and Merry Time Bar and Grill.

“Seeing all these people that had such a passion for it, and then there was no way to get them together in the same room. You would slowly see little cliques forming where people had stumbled upon one another, or something like that,” he said. “It just felt like something where the community had enough people that were interested in it, but no one was doing the thing to make it happen.”

When he posted on Facebook about wanting to start a club, he was overwhelmed with positive feedback and offers of help. He has been working with local companies to set times for the club to meet.

He said it is important to him that beginners are welcomed. That is the biggest thing he noticed when he began to play pinball — that newcomers were never looked down.

Seidl, who formerly taught writing at Lake Tahoe Community College after receiving a Master of Fine Arts from University of Nevada, Reno, likened the pinball community to that of writing.

“If you got a really good book deal, your buddy wasn’t pissed at you, your buddy was like, ‘That is the most amazing thing,’” he said.

He said the pinball world acts the same as the writing world. You can meet pinball designers and converse within the community no matter where you stand, which is something that drew him in.

Seidl was not an avid pinball player as a kid, although he played his fair share of it at local arcades. That seems to be a trend he’s noticed, though. People get into the game later and trade knowledge of certain pinball machines with each other.

Pinball peaked in popularity in the 1950s but waned by the 1970s as video games became more accessible. Over the past several years, with a pandemic disruption, Merry Time has hosted pinball tournaments.

“Without knowing them at all, you have this shared experience of practice paying off and the stress/excitement of a game going your way for three balls. Literally it might be a once in a lifetime experience you both shared in an odd way,” Seidl said. “It is a community of caring folks who share a passion for the game and like to release some stress in a retro way.”