Sports
Joe Tait: It's Been a Real Ball
Stories from a Hall-of-Fame Sports Broadcasting Career
by Terry Pluto | Joe Tait
Legendary broadcaster Joe Tait is like an old family friend to three generations of Cleveland sports fans. This book celebrates his hall-of-fame career with stories from Joe and dozens of fans, media colleagues, and players. It's co-written . . . [Read More]
Pass the Nuts
More Stories About The Most Unusual, Eccentric & Outlandish People I've Known in Four Decades as a Sports Journalist
by Dan Coughlin
Dan Coughlin serves up a second rollicking collection of stories about colorful characters and memorable events from his four decades covering sports for Cleveland TV and newspapers. Meet the gun-toting fanatics of Morgana Park--once home of "the most . . . [Read More]
Things I've Learned from Watching the Browns
by Terry Pluto
Here's a question for any Browns fan . . .
Why?
Why, more than four long decades after your team's last championship . . . despite a relentless pattern of heartbreak, teasing, and more heartbreak . . . capped with a decade of utter futility . . . do you still stick . . . [Read More]
Crazy, With the Papers to Prove It
Stories About the Most Unusual, Eccentric and Outlandish People I've Known in 45 Years as a Sports Journalist
by Dan Coughlin
Dan Coughlin is not crazy, but for 45 years he covered sports in Cleveland, which means he lived life under a full moon. In this book, the award-winning Plain Dealer and WJW-TV reporter reflects on the most unusual . . . [Read More]
The Browns Fan's Tailgating Guide
by Peter Chakerian
Now it's easy for any Browns fan to tailgate like a well-seasoned veteran. This book shares tips from Cleveland's top tailgaters— about where to, when to, and how to do it all, Browns fan style.
It also tells inspiring . . . [Read More]
Dealing
The Cleveland Indians' New Ballgame: How a Small-Market Team Reinvented Itself as a Major League Contender
by Terry Pluto
Now updated through the exciting 2007 season— with a new section of color photos.
For Indians fans who want to know what's going on inside the front office, this book tells all. It's an in-depth look at how the . . . [Read More]
The Franchise
LeBron James and the Remaking of the Cleveland Cavaliers
by Terry Pluto | Brian Windhorst
When the Cleveland Cavaliers drew the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, an entire city buzzed with excitement. After all, how often does a LeBron James come along? Especially for Cleveland, a midmarket Rust Belt city without a sports . . . [Read More]
Browns Scrapbook
A Fond Look Back at Five Decades of Football, from a Legendary Cleveland Sportswriter
by Chuck Heaton
Hall of fame football writer Chuck Heaton spent an incredible five decades covering the Cleveland Browns— the “ old Browns” teams that fans still miss. He reported on the Browns for the Plain Dealer from 1946 to 1993— nearly the entire . . . [Read More]
The Top 20 Moments in Cleveland Sports
Tremendous Tales of Heroes and Heartbreaks
by Bob Dyer
Now in paperback.
(Formerly titled "Cleveland Sports Legends" in hardcover.)
These twenty exciting stories recount the most memorable and sensational events in Cleveland sports history.
Some are inspiring tales of glory: The Browns' thrilling underdog victory over the heavily favored . . . [Read More]
Ask Hal
Answers to Fans' Most Interesting Questions About Baseball Rules from a Hall-of-Fame Sportswriter
by Hal Lebovitz
Very few writers (or broadcasters for that matter) know the rules of the games they cover as Hal Lebovitz did." – Bob Costas
Think it couldn't happen? It probably did! Just ask Hal.
Hal Lebovitz reigned as a leading expert on . . . [Read More]
Curse of Rocky Colavito
A Loving Look at a Thirty-Year Slump
by Terry Pluto
Any team can have an off-decade. But three in a row? Only in Cleveland.
The Indians tempted fate when they traded away Rocky Colavito in 1960. Young, strong, popular, and coming off back-to-back 40 home run/100 . . . [Read More]
Whatever Happened to Super Joe?
Catching Up With 45 Good Old Guys from the Bad Old Days of the Cleveland Indians
by Russell Schneider
From the mid-1950s through the mid-1990s, the Cleveland Indians fielded team after team that just couldn't win. Those forty long years, before the opening of Jacobs Field and the “ era of champions,” are remembered by many as the . . . [Read More]
Heart of a Mule
The Dick Schafrath Stories
by Dick Schafrath
He won national football championships with the 1964 Cleveland Browns and the 1957 Ohio State University Buckeyes. He served four terms in the Ohio senate. He was the first person ever to canoe across Lake Erie. He ran sixty miles . . . [Read More]
The Best of Hal Lebovitz
Great Sportswriting from Six Decades in Cleveland
by Hal Lebovitz
Here, collected for the first time, are the best columns and feature stories by Cleveland's greatest living sportswriter.
Hal Lebovitz is a true major league hall-of-famer. Enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, he's still at . . . [Read More]
Curses! Why Cleveland Sports Fans Deserve to Be Miserable
A Lifetime of Tough Luck, Bad Breaks, Goofs, Gaffes, and Blunders
by Tim Long
Here's one championship title we Cleveland fans can grasp and proudly hold aloft: Most Miserable.
Boston fans no longer have their Curse to bemoan— and anyway, they've got those Patriots Super Bowl trophies. (Aargh!— Bill Belichick!)
Chicago fans? Don't start . . . [Read More]
False Start
How the New Browns Were Set Up to Fail
by Terry Pluto
It was supposed to be the dawn of a grand new era of football in Cleveland.
Instead, it was a rude wakeup call.
When the new Cleveland Browns took the field in 1999, legions of loyal fans— once heartsick, abandoned . . . [Read More]
LeBron James: The Rise of a Star
by David Lee Morgan Jr.
He has been called the best high school basketball player ever.
He made the cover of Sports Illustrated as a junior, was featured on national television, and signed more than $100 million in promotional contracts before the end of his . . . [Read More]
The Toe
The Lou Groza Story
by Lou Groza
Back in print, with a new design. Lou “ The Toe” Groza played for the Cleveland Browns longer than anyone (1946-1967), becoming a beloved football icon along the way. His autobiography vividly recalls a golden age of professional football that spans . . . [Read More]
Browns Town 1964
Cleveland's Browns and the 1964 Championship
by Terry Pluto
First time in paperback *
In this nostalgic look at Cleveland's last championship team, sportswriter Terry Pluto tells the remarkable story of the upstart AFC team's surprise success over the favored Baltimore Colts and the colorful players who made that whole . . . [Read More]
Heroes, Scamps, and Good Guys
101 Colorful Characters from Cleveland Sports History
by Bob Dolgan
Colorful characters crowd the world of sports, and we've certainly had our share in Cleveland.
Sportswriter Bob Dolgan has written about them all while covering the sports beat for The Plain Dealer during the past six decades.
This book collects . . . [Read More]
Omar!
My Life On and Off the Field
by Omar Vizquel | Bob Dyer
You don't have to be a baseball fan to be an Omar Vizquel fan.
Omar doesn't just make the tough plays look easy. He makes the toughest plays look fun. Widely considered one of the best defensive shortstops in the . . . [Read More]
On Being Brown
What it Means to Be a Cleveland Browns Fan
by Scott Huler
What is this madness all about?
Anyone who has experienced it knows: being a Cleveland Browns fan is just different.
Why are we the only fans in the nation who ever demanded their team back— and got it? Why did . . . [Read More]