Mickey and chums return for an all-new, festive feature. Minnie and Mickey recall a magical Christmas when they each gave up something important for the other's sake, while Donald Duck's nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie remember when Christmas nearly turned into a disaster!

What do Julius Erving, Larry Brown, Moses Malone, Bob Costas, the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs and the Slam Dunk Contest have in common? They all got their professional starts in the American Basketball Association.

The NBA may have won the financial battle, but the ABA won the artistic war. With its stress on wide-open individual play, the adoption of the 3-point shot and pressing defense, and the encouragement of flashy moves and flying dunks, today's NBA is still -- decades later -- just the ABA without the red, white and blue ball.

"Loose Balls" is, after all these years, the definitive and most widely respected history of the ABA. It's a wild ride through some of the wackiest, funniest, strangest times ever to hit pro sports -- told entirely through the (often incredible) words of those who played, wrote and connived their way through the league's nine seasons.

"An easy, fun book to read and will surely bring back good memories for Cleveland sports fans who listened to Tait's trademark calls since 1970." -- 20SecondTimeout.com

Joe Tait is like a family friend to three generations of Cleveland sports fans. This book celebrates his Hall-of-Fame broadcasting career with stories from Joe and dozens of fans, media colleagues, and players.

He was "the Voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers." But to fans, Joe was also "one of us." Cavs basketball, Indians baseball, or Mount Union football, he made the game come alive, and wasn't afraid to speak his mind--even when it might get him in trouble with the coach or the owner.

In high school, Joe loved sports but wasn't always good enough to make the team. Then he discovered play-by-play announcing. Combining two passions, he began to carefully build a broadcasting career that would eventually touch the lives of countless other sports fans.

Pluto weaves a roughly chronological narrative that hits the highlights of a long career. It also uncovers some touching personal details. For example, one chapter describes how Joe's father, a stern man with a deep-rooted distrust of black people, came to become good friends with Cavaliers center Nate Thurmond, to Joe's surprise and delight.

With fans, Joe was often more popular than the players on the court--especially during the Cavs' dimmer days. When notoriously incompetent team owner Ted Stepien fired Joe in the 1980s, fans protested and staged a rally in his honor. When new owner Gordon Gund took over the team, the first thing did was hire Joe back. "He is the franchise," Gund said. "To have a basketball team in Cleveland, you have to have Joe Tait."

His work inspired a generation of young broadcasters. Language he invented became part of the common broadcast language in Northeast Ohio. "Left to right on your radio dial" . . . "Wham, with the right hand" . . . "It's a beautiful day for baseball " . . . "To the line, to the lane . . ."

The stories in this book will make fans feel like they're sitting alongside Joe enjoying a play-by-play recap of the remarkable career they shared together.

More from "the sportswriter who writes about faith" . . . Here's a second helping of Terry Pluto's plain and personal musings on topics we all face in everyday life: insults and what they really mean, prayers that don't seem to get answered, endless sibling rivalry, figuring out how to relate to our fathers . . .

"My goal is not to convert anyone reading the paper," Terry writes. "It is to make them think, and to bring some comfort. I write for people who are struggling with faith, or people in pain--physical or emotional. My job is to give them a voice, and to talk about the kind of faith we need to get through what life throws at us each day."

Terry already had a dream job: getting paid to write about sports for a daily newspaper. But when the opportunity arose to write about more spiritual topics, he embraced the challenge. Readers are glad he did. His "Faith and You" column now regularly touches the lives of thousands of loyal readers.

Terry writes for people who aren't always confident in their beliefs but know faith is still important to them . . . For people who sometimes get mad at their church or disagree with their pastor yet don't want to lose the spiritual side of their lives . . . For people of different faiths or backgrounds or who aren't even sure they're religious. These essays don't claim to have all the answers. But the questions they raise give readers something to think about all week.

This Christmas, pack the sleigh, hitch up the reindeer and celebrate the season with Mickey and all his friends in a fun-filled adventure.

When Santa's sleigh breaks down at the top of Mistletoe Mountain, Mickey and Donald race to his rescue. The gang plays a game of hide-and-seek with the world's greatest hider - Donald Duck! And Goofy needs help returning a lost baby bird to its mother in the forest. Be a part of three hilarious stories about helping others, and discover that the greatest gift of all is good friends.

Open the door to Mickey's Clubhouse, and unwrap some Christmas fun for the entire family.

"Sometimes I wish my minister would read his column instead of the sermon "

That's the kind of response Plain Dealer columnist Terry Pluto draws from devoted readers of his faith column. Although best known as an award-winning sportswriter, Pluto has also earned a reputation--and a growing audience--for his down-to-earth musings on more spiritual subjects.

This followup to his first collection, "Everyday Faith," offers 28 all-new thoughtful essays on faith in everyday life--practical topics such as choosing a church, lending money to friends, dealing with jerks, sharing your faith, visiting the sick, even planning a funeral.

Perhaps it's because Pluto doesn't claim to have the answers that so many readers are drawn to his writing.

"Real faith writing should be about real life," Pluto says. "I write as much about my failures as my triumphs, because that is what a life of faith is about. It's often as much suffering as celebration, with lots of mundane, everyday stuff in between. I write for people who may have been hurt by someone in church, people who have been discouraged by one who claimed to speak for God . . . I write for people who have found contentment in their faith but want a deeper relationship with God."

- First time in paperback -
In this nostalgic look at Cleveland's last championship team, sportswriter Terry Pluto tells the remarkable story of the underdog team's surprise success and the colorful players who made that season so memorable.
"Pluto movingly reveals the substance of a mythic bond between men and a game, a team and a city--and thus lays bare how present-day pro football has surrendered its soul." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Terry Pluto, perhaps the best American writer of sports books has picked the right team to get nostalgic about. The 1964 NFL champion Cleveland Browns were sort of a combination of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and the mid-'60s St. Louis Cardinals--the former because it was the only championship won by a team that was expected to be a dynasty and the latter because it featured so many people who were as interesting off the field as on." -- Houston Chronicle

For forty years, he has been the Quiet Man of the NBA. As a rookie, he was overshadowed by two pretty fair guards who entered the league

at the same time: Jerry West and Oscar Robertson. As a veteran, he was -- both figuratively and literally -- a coach on the floor, but he had the misfortune to play for several struggling teams. As a general manager, he won a championship and made back-to-back Finals appearances -- but he did it without superstars, a year before Magic Johnson and Larry Bird revitalized the league. And as a coach, he has won more games than anyone in NBA history -- but spent his best years locked in the same division as Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.

Basketball connoisseurs have long appreciated the style and intelligence with which Lenny Wilkens played and the unflappability and class he's brought to coaching. The respect he has earned resulted in his joining the legendary John Wooden as the only men to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame "twice" -- first as a player, and then as a coach.

Now, in "Unguarded, " Lenny Wilkens steps out from behind his placid demeanor to speak plainly and unequivocally on the enormous social and athletic changes he's seen in his career.

Wilkens sounds off about the challenges he had to overcome in the course of his journey: the racism that left him off the 1960 Olympic basketball team and kept him from being chosen as head coach of the first Dream Team; the fatal miscalculation that kept his Cleveland Cavaliers from getting past Michael Jordan to the NBA Finals; the painful, frustrating task of coaching a troubled and troublesome J.R. Rider, a player who contributed to his departure from Atlanta. And he credits those who went out of their way to help him: the priests and nuns who taught him the value of discipline and reinforced his faith; the coaches who pushed him to develop his talents to the fullest; the selfless players such as John Johnson, Hot Rod Williams, Larry Nance, Steve Smith, and many others who sacrificed individual glory for the good of their teams; his mother, Henrietta, and his wife, Marilyn, who stood beside him in many trying times.

"Unguarded "reveals the Lenny Wilkens we have never seen before, the tough, strong, thoughtful, and analytical man who has spent a life in basketball making his teammates and players better than they knew they could be. Thought-provoking, candid, always honest, Wilkens shares all the secrets he's learned in his four decades surviving in the NBA storm.

An history of the beginnings of the National Basketball Associations for true basketball fans.
"Tall Tales" in an oral history of the early days of the National Basketball Associations, when giants such as Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Maurice Stokes, Oscar Robertson, Bob Pettit, Lenny Wilkens, Hot Rod Hundley, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor stalked the boards. When players sometimes had second jobs in the off-season. When teams were based in towns like Fort Wayne, Syracuse, and Rochester. If you consider yourself a true basketball fan, you need to know the sport's roots. They're all here, courtesy of Terry Pluto.

Masterarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich Geschichte - Weltgeschichte - Fruhgeschichte, Antike, Note: 1,0, Freie Universitat Berlin, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Athens was a direct democracy, a mode of state organization that seems not to exist in the modern world." In den westlichen Industrienlandern gilt die Demokratie gemeinhin nicht nur als die erstrebenswerte Herrschaftsform, sondern auch als eine zentrale Grund-haltung in der Gesellschaft, eine demokratische Mentalitat. Diese reicht soweit, dass auch Beziehungen zu anderen Nationen anhand der An- oder Abwesenheit von Demokratie ausgerichtet werden. Die Wurzeln unserer Demokratie, die in identitatsstiftenderweise eine kulturelle Verbindung zwischen den modernen westlichen Demokratien herstellen und ein Faktor unseres gemeinsamen Kulturraums bilden, liegen dabei im antiken Athen. Ein Blick auf die antike athenische Auspragung der Demokratie ist schon deshalb lohnenswert, weil sie als Vorlage fur unsere Zeit dient, aber dennoch in ihrer Einzigartigkeit fundamental unterschiedlich funktionierte, wie das Eingangszitat verdeutlicht. Auf Grund dieser Einzigartigkeit tragt ein moderner Begriff von Demokratie bei der Betrachtung der antiken Form nicht weit, sodass von einer zeitgenossischen Vorstellung ausgegangen werden muss. Das Ziel der Arbeit besteht im Aufzeigen der charakteristischen Eigenheiten der athenischen Demokratie und ihres Beginns. Ferner soll der Blick von der Fachwissenschaft zur Geschichtsdidaktik gerichtet werden, um zu untersuchen, welche Schwerpunkte aus der Wissenschaft in die Schule ubertragen werden. Deshalb gliedert sich die Arbeit in zwei Teile, wobei im ersten Teil die Diskussion um den Beginn der athenischen Demokratie aufgegriffen wird und weiterfuhrend die einzelnen Institutionen eingehend betrachtet werden, um daraus den Charakter der Demokratie abzuleiten. Im zweiten Teil soll die didaktische Perspektive uber eine Analyse von Schulbuchern aus der Primarstufe und der Oberstufe g