There's nothing frivolous about a game of marbles in North Park this weekend.
The 16th Annual U.S. Marbles Championship is under way in Allegheny County for the first time, bringing together 28 top shooters from the East and South.
These are the people who can bend their wrists like contortionists, then launch a marble that has more spin than a political convention. In the small circle of marbles, most of the good shooters know one another from years of tournaments.
"I love the game, and it's good to see my friends," said Paul McKeone, 48, who's been playing for keeps since his boyhood in Reading, Berks County, where he won four city championships in the 1960s and '70s.
The U.S. Marbles Championship is for anybody older than 14, or for recent champions of the National Marbles Tournament, a youth event that is held annually in Wildwood, N.J.
Amber Ricci, of Shaler, was just 12 when she won the national tournament in June. Rules of that competition bar champions from seeking a repeat, so her new venue is the U.S. Marbles Championship, a tourney without age limits.
Amber is among seven girls and women competing for the female championship. Twenty-one people are in the male division.
Rick Mawhinney, 51, of Cumberland, Md., is among the older competitors. He won the 1971 national marbles championship as a boy of 14 and now is director of the Wildwood tournament.
At North Park yesterday, he dismantled a teenage opponent in a preliminary round, proving he can still shoot. Mr. Mawhinney, though, says he is not the marksman he once was. He spends his days working for UPS so, he says, his game is not as strong as when he devoted himself to marbles the way so many kids today do to video games.
The U.S. Marbles Championship traditionally was held in Middletown, Md., but organizers decided to move it to the Pittsburgh area this year.
Allegheny County is a hotbed for marbles talent. It has produced 34 preteen or teenage champions of the National Marbles Tournament since 1927.
In this weekend's competition at North Park, the game is Ringer. It's played in a ring 10 feet in diameter. Thirteen marbles are arranged in the center, in the shape of a cross. The object is to shoot these marbles out of the ring.
Mr. Mawhinney said he has used the same "shooter" -- the large marble he fires at the 13 smaller ones -- for at least 15 years. Made of stone, it feels just right. That is important, as marbles requires the fine shooting touch necessary for billiards or putting golf balls.
Mr. McKeone still had it yesterday, as he defeated Ed Ricci, 42, Amber's father. Mr. Ricci said it was the third time Mr. McKeone had bested him over the years in the U.S. Marbles Championship.
Even those who no longer shoot still take an interest in the game they played as boys. Event organizers said Doug Opperman, the 1940 national champion, plans to attend the final round today in North Park.
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