If the NBA was not all that popular in 1966 - now look at it! How did the NBA get from 9 teams (1965-66) to the current 30? Answer: legends, stars, mergers, a strong commissioner, timing, the 1992 Summer Olympics and an influx of foreign players. It's all here! Check this out: rule changes, league news, trades, trends, lists of rookies, noteworthy season and playoff games, records, scandals, scoring leaders, rebounding leaders, year-end award winners, and championship results.

In 1984, the Bulls were entering their 19th year as a franchise when they signed Michael Jeffrey Jordan to a contract. Lest anyone forget, the pre-Jordan Bulls sported some very good teams that included some very good players like Guy Rodgers, Bob Love, Chet Walker, Tom Boerwinkle, Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier, and Artis Gilmore. Their play brought winning seasons, plenty of loud excitement and hope at the Stadium, but alas none of those teams reached the Finals. By the time His Airness took the floor, the Bulls hadn't seen the playoffs in 3 years and the 1983-84 version lost twice as many games as they won. Jordan brought the team respect, but it took a total of 6 seasons, a coaching change, and a shrewd GM to make great draft choices and add role players for the club to hoist the hardware and raise the Bulls' first championship banner. This was the first of 6 (two three-peats). The heroes were many: Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, John Paxson, Bill Cartwright, Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper, and Toni Kukoc. And Jordan? The 5X NBA MVP was voted Finals MVP all 6 times. The tough times that followed included more coaching changes. But there were also some personal successes: two Bulls won Rookie of the Year honors (the second of the two was voted league MVP), another won a 6th Man Award (his rookie season), a fan-favorite from Duke made the 2011-12 All-Defense team, and a 7-foot center from Florida won the 2012-13 NBA Player of the Year. Yes, there were good times as well (think Bench Mob!). The current 2021-2022 Bulls, led by coach Billy Donovan, entered the playoffs with the addition of All NBA (2nd Team) forward DeMar DeRozan, Olympian Zach LeVine, center Nikola Vucevic, 3rd year guard Coby White, and rookie guard Ayu Dosunmu. This was truly DeRozan's year - tying NBA record first set by Larry Bird (1985) and breaking another set by Wilt Chamberlain in the 1960s. What's included? Year-by year Standings, Club news, draft choices, player trades, dozens of season games and all post-season summaries. For more context: there's League news, noteworthy league games, stat leaders, year-end award winners, and Finals outcomes.

Find out what's going on any day of the year, anywhere across the globe! The world’s date book since 1957, Chase's is the definitive, authoritative, day-by-day resource of what the world is celebrating. From national days to celebrity birthdays, from historical milestones to astronomical phenomena, from award ceremonies and sporting events to religious festivals and carnivals, Chase's is the must-have reference used by experts and professionals—a one-stop shop with 12,500 entries for everything that is happening now or is worth remembering from the past. Completely updated for 2023, Chase's also features extensive appendices as well as a companion website that puts the power of Chase's at the user's fingertips. 2023 is packed with special events and observances, including National days and public holidays of every nation on Earth Scores of new special days, weeks and months Famous birthdays of new world leaders, lauded authors and breakout celebrities Info on milestone anniversaries, such as the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, the 125th anniversary of the Curies' discovery of radium, the 100th birth anniversary of Hank Williams, the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, the 50th anniversary of Skylab Information on such special sporting events as the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin, Germany And much more! All from the reference book that Publishers Weekly calls "one of the most impressive reference volumes in the world."

For over 60 years, the color barrier excluded Black ballplayers from the major leagues, forcing them to form their own teams and leagues. After Jackie Robinson broke down that barrier, Black players faced another: the barrier to the Hall of Fame. At the time of the founding of the Hall of Fame, segregation was firmly entrenched in baseball, and it was defended by the same power brokers who kept the Hall successful with their support. The fight for the recognition that Black players had earned on the field lasted nearly as long as the color barrier itself. This book presents the full history of that fight: the exclusion of Black players for so many years, the many efforts to fix that, and the fights for Hall of Fame recognition of the Negro Leagues that are still ongoing.

This "part memoir, part sports story" (Wall Street Journal) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Big Bam chronicles the clash of NBA titans over seven riveting games—Celtics versus Lakers, Russell versus Chamberlain—covered by one young reporter. Welcome to the 1969 NBA Finals! They don’t set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time - Bill Russell - and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell’s opponent? The fearsome 7’1” next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league’s first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The 1969 Celtics are at the end of their dominance. The 1969 Lakers are unstoppable. Add to the mix one newly minted reporter. Covering the epic series is a wide-eyed young sports writer named Leigh Montville. Years before becoming an award-winning legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, twenty-four-year-old Montville is ordered by his editor at the Globe to get on a plane to L.A. (first time!) to write about his luminous heroes, the biggest of big men. What follows is a raucous, colorful, joyous account of one of the greatest seven-game series in NBA history. Set against a backdrop of the late sixties, Montville’s reporting and recollections transport readers to a singular time – with rampant racial tension on the streets and on the court, with the emergence of a still relatively small league on its way to becoming a billion-dollar industry, and to an era when newspaper journalism and the written word served as the crucial lifeline between sports and sports fans. And there was basketball – seven breathtaking, see-saw games, highlight-reel moments from an unprecedented cast of future Hall of Famers (including player-coach Russell as the first-ever black head coach in the NBA), coast-to-coast travels and the clack-clack-clack of typewriter keys racing against tight deadlines. Tall Men, Short Shorts is a masterpiece of sports journalism with a charming touch of personal memoir. Leigh Montville has crafted his most entertaining book yet, richly enshrining luminous players and moments in a unique American time.

This book brings you the first, fastest, longest, largest, biggest, and best records in the world. Track the world's longest migrations, visit the coolest place on the planet (Vostok Station, Antarctica - a chilling -89.2oC), see how plane pioneer Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier, and much more. The greatest human achievements are showcased, from pioneering inventors to modern feats of engineering, technology, transport, and sport. But there's far more than just people power in this book! There are also records about animals, plants, Earth, and space. Amazing facts pack this fantastic book of world records. It's the perfect gift book for curious kids.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team. As a writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team’s Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where superstars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird debated the finer points of basketball. And he narrates a riveting account of the legendary intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game in history. In the twenty years since the Dream Team first captivated the world, its mystique has only grown. Dream Team vividly re-creates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together and changed the future of sports—one perfectly executed fast break at a time. With a new Afterword by the author. “The absolute definitive work on the subject, a perfectly wonderful once-you-pick-it-up-you-won’t-be-able-to-put-it-down book.”—The Boston Globe “An Olympic hoops dream.”—Newsday “What makes this volume a must-read for nostalgic hoopsters are the robust portraits of the outsize personalities of the participants, all of whom were remarkably open with McCallum, both then and now.”—Booklist (starred review)