A few months back I met at "The Wicked Pissah Pinball Pit" a new person which is always welcome to see in this hobby of ours. Mike had convinced his friend Steve to tag along. I learned that Steve Almond was not only a great guy but he was a journalist. I had fun showing him how to "properly" play pinball and he was having a blast as I did finding out pinball is still a thing, they continually made games since the 70's and 80's, and what it takes to get the crazy scores he was seeing. It was a lot more than flailing the flippers to keep the ball away from the drain area.
A few weeks later and there is a photographer hired by Southwest Airlines taking photos. We find out Steve is a really good journalist and is writing a piece for their in-flight magazine. Also Greg Bond is in a photo and he was in the "King of Kong" film and former Mappy world champion. Luckily the article can be found here if you are not flying in March: https://www.southwestmag.com/pinball-revival/
The photographer is Mary Beth Koeth who did photo's for the Google Pixel phone ads: http://www.mbkoeth.com/#
Steve Almond is an award winning journalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Almond
Really I have to say the photo's and story is the best article I have seen in pinball. Maybe I'm biased but it's a great pinball article because it was wrote by a pinball player. It didn't alienate us as the stereotype "freaks" that pinball articles usually do.
