Southern California was the birthplace of organized drag racing, with the first organized race held at the Santa Ana airport in 1949 and the subsequent founding of the National Hot Rod Association in 1950. Over the next decade and a half, the dragster became the king of the quarter mile on Southern California drag strips. In 1964, veteran dragster owner/driver Jack Chrisman had an idea for something different to grace Southern California's drag strips. It was not a dragster but a stock-bodied race car using nitromethane for fuel in a supercharged engine. With the help of Gene Mooneyham, Mercury's Fran Hernandez, and sponsor Helen Sachs, Chrisman put together the world's first nitro-burning "funny car." It was a steel stock-bodied Mercury Cyclone with a supercharged 427 Ford engine running on pure nitromethane. Chrisman started the evolution that soon turned stock steel-bodied cars into fiberglass-bodied tube chassis funny cars. Southern California drag racers began to lead the way for racers all over the United States in the new funny car class.

Chicago Cubs fans always will remember the beloved 1969 team. Yet the 1970 Cubs are, in many ways, more interesting. The Cubs added fascinating characters like Joe Pepitone and Milt Pappas to the legendary nucleus of Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks. The team came closer than in any year between 1945 and 1984--finishing only five games out of first place in one of baseball's hottest pennant races. Offering a fast-paced look at the season month by month, William S. Bike moves beyond wins, losses and statistics to relive Ernie Banks's 500th home run, the addition of "the basket" to the outfield walls and other iconic moments from a landmark year at Wrigley Field.

All kinds of spurious rumors had swirled around the 1919 World Series. Allegations about a fixed game between the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies on August 31, 1920, began a chain of events that led to a grand jury indicting eight White Sox players for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds the year before. Outside the courtroom, Shoeless Joe Jackson, just coming off his best overall offensive season with .382 average, was reportedly confronted by a young fan pleading for a denial from his hero. Jackson would later deny the encounter ever occurred and also deny any guilt in the World Series fix. In the almost 100 years since eight White Sox players were banned for life, there has been little historical closure due to a fleeting consensus on a scandal that almost took down Major League Baseball.

More Than Just a Game tells the story of the 100-year football rivalry between NCA&T and NCCU through never-before-seen photographs and images. The work seeks to honor the many coaches, players, and participants in this storied rivalry. These vintage images illustrate the importance of the schools’ rare and special rivalry, something students and alumni already know. Written with the fans of both institutions in mind, this book seeks to recount the jubilant victories and heartbreaking losses of each school. It is the story of HBCUs at their best and documents their contributions to the state of North Carolina and the nation. It is a story of perseverance, accomplishment, and pride.

A Cubs dynasty founded on fastballs and fisticuffs.  Unlike today's Chicago Cubs, the Cubs of 1906-1910 were not at all lovable, and certainly did not always display traits customarily linked with a winning team. Their manager would brawl with his own players, and the players brawled with each other. Their second baseman and shortstop hated each other and didn't speak for years. Their best pitcher pitched with a mutilated hand. Their star catcher got into a spat with management and left the team for a year to play professional billiards. Their manager over time grew to despise the team owner. Yet, this group of brawlers, bickerers, and battlers dominated the National League and established a baseball dynasty, winning four National League pennants and two world championships in 5 years. Author Gary D. Santella follows the story of a team whose toughness and tenacity was a fitting reflection of early twentieth-century Chicago.

Walk in the footsteps of Virginia’s earliest hikers.

For more than two decades hikers on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia walked through some of the most beautiful landscapes of the southern mountains. Then, in 1952, the Appalachian Trail Conference moved the trail more than 50 miles to the west. Lost in that move were opportunities to scramble over the Pinnacles of Dan, to sit on Fisher’s Peak and gaze out over the North Carolina Piedmont, or to cross the New River on a flat-bottomed boat called Redbud for a nickel.

Historian and lifelong hiker Mills Kelly tells the story of a 300-mile section of the Appalachian Trail that is all but forgotten by hikers, but not by the residents of the Southwestern Virginia counties that the trail used to cross.