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 inspiring story of Cleveland's last champions: The 1964 Cleveland Browns.

A nostalgic look back at the remarkable story of the upstart AFC Cleveland Browns' surprise championship victory over the hugely favored Baltimore Colts in 1964. Sportswriter Terry Pluto profiles the colorful players who made that season so memorable. He takes us through the entire 1964 season from training camp at Hiram College to the championship game in Municipal Stadium. Along the way he recreates an era and a team for which pride was not just a slogan.

They were a team of men in the truest sense...

"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...

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...

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...

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....

An in-depth look at how a team and a city were rebuilt around LeBron James . . .

When the Cleveland Cavaliers drew the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, the entire city buzzed with excitement. How often does a superstar come along? Especially for Cleveland, a midmarket Rust Belt city without a sports championship in forty years. Especially for the Cavaliers, a long-struggling team that had never reached the NBA finals.

Soon, everyone had something riding on LeBron: a billionaire team owner wanting a return on his investment . . . teammates eager for a championship ring . . . the league...