Paul Muchinsky, author of
Baseball Pinback Buttons, passed away earlier this week. He posted on these forums sometimes as "springpin," and kept a blog about pinbacks.
He was a prolific author in other areas, too, having written one of the most widely-used introductory texts for the field of industrial-organizational psychology (which is now in its eleventh edition, and which I myself use when I teach that class to undergraduates). I'm also not sure I've ever seen higher average ratings for a professor on ratemyprofessors.com than Paul received, and it's clear from the comments there that his students loved him.
I was lucky enough to get to know Paul through our shared profession, but I suspect that we bonded as quickly as we did through our shared love of collecting. In just a short few years, he became both a mentor and a friend to me.
I can only hope that when I go, I'll be remembered for a contribution I made to some field or other; Paul made lasting contributions to several. He will be missed.
http://www.greensboro.com/obituaries...fad327afe.html
[Leon, I wasn't sure where to put this; if you feel it's more appropriate over on the memorabilia side, feel free to move it.]