In 1890, baseball's Pittsburgh Alleghenys won a measly 23 games, losing 113. The Cleveland Spiders topped this record when they lost an astonishing 134 games in 1899. Over 100 years later, the 2003 Detroit Tigers stood apart as the only team in baseball history to lose 60 games before July in a season. These stories and more are told in Cellar Dwellers: The Worst Teams in Baseball History, a colorful tribute to the sport's least successful clubs. Cellar Dwellers spans three centuries of professional baseball, recounting the seasons of those teams whose misadventures have largely been forgotten over time. Chapters not only cover the stories of the luckless teams, they also include reams of statistics and detailed player profiles of those who helped the clubs--and those who helped them fail. In addition to the Alleghenys, Spiders, and Tigers, the cellar dwellers of baseball include: -1904 and 1909 Washington Senators -1916 Philadelphia Athletics -1928 and 1941 Philadelphia Phillies -1932 Boston Red Sox -1935 Boston Braves -1939 St. Louis Browns -1952 Pittsburgh Pirates -1962 New York Mets While many books revel in the glories of teams whose exploits have become legendary, the stories found in this volume offer an engaging alternative to the thrill of victory. Embellished with comical and amusing anecdotes alongside historical perspectives, Cellar Dwellers will entertain baseball fans and fascinate those who love baseball history.

All our favorite ancient myths and legends get an epic makeover in Nico Bravo and the Cellar Dwellers, the second volume of Mike Cavallaro's hilarious middle-grade graphic novel series! Got a problem? The seasoned staff at Vulcan's Celestial Supply Shop—a kid named Nico Bravo, a sphinx named Lula, and a unicorn named Buck—have got just the thing for you in their inventory of magical merchandise. Nico’s enemy is finally revealed: Ahriman, God of Evil! Ahriman is fed up with Nico thwarting all his heinous plans and sends a shapeshifter named Orcus to Vulcan’s Celestial Supply Shop on a covert mission to take Nico and his crew down. Orcus mistakenly unleashes a dangerous ‘Misery’ from the God of Misfortune’s pouch, threatening everyone in the Supply Shop, but also discovers the missing link between Nico, the Unicorn Wars, and Reality itself! What will happen to Nico and his friends when all their troubles converge in a desperate battle for the fate of the Universe? *Colors by Jeremy Lawson

A 2019 New York Public Library Best Books for Kids A 2020 Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List Selection Take another look at your favorite myths and legends in this hillarious new graphic novel by Mike Cavallaro! Got a problem? At Vulcan’s Celestial Supply Shop, you can find the magical merchandise to set things right. The seasoned staff—a kid named Nico Bravo, a sphinx named Lula, and a unicorn named Buck—pride themselves on providing “legendary service and expertise in all areas of the arcane.” But Nico’s world is about to be turned upside down, and it’s all thanks his latest customer: Eowulf, the pint-size descendant of the monster slayer Beowulf. Determined to carry on the family business, this would-be warrior plans to slay Cerberus, the terrifying, three-headed hound of Hades. There’s just one problem—Cerberus is the only thing preventing the hordes of the Underworld from entering the land of the living. Can Nico stop Eowulf from unleashing a zombie apocalypse?

DIVIt seems like Ryan, Zeke, Miles, and Eli have been friends forever. They spend practically every afternoon together playing basketball or just hanging out. But this year is different. All four friends are trying out for the basketball team./divDIV With so many good players in the running, Ryan is concerned that he won’t make the team. But he’s even more worried about what will happen to his group of friends if all of them don’t make the final cut./divDIV/div

Since 1973, Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

In 1972, after 125 years of all-male education, the University of Notre Dame went coed. These pages collect the memoriesJean Lenz, O.S.F., rectress of the all-female dormitory Farley Hall during that first year when loyal daughters joined the loyal sons of Notre Dame. Loyal Sons and Daughters gives readers a glimpse of what life was like for that first class of women, and for the men who welcomed them. It was a pivotal time for a campus so steeped in tradition. Sister Lenz was right in the middle of it all as the daughters of Notre Dame wrote new stories at the country's most storied Catholic university. More than a quarter century later, she heeded the urging of fellow Golden Domers--"get these stories into print, otherwise they will all be lost."

As the war in Iraq heated up and the American soldiers were deployed overseas to take part in the conflict, the need to send care packages and calm the nerves of their families became increasingly important. One small community in America rose to this challenge. A family from the New England community of Danvers, MA, whose son and daughter were both deployed at the time, received a call on the day the US entered Iraq. Their daughter, a deployed nurse named Tina, asked her parents for their help in collecting magazines and games to give to the troops who were recovering in the combat hospital. This simple call for help began a journey that included the formation of a non-profit organization, a nation–wide appeal for supplies, contributions from across the country, a trip to Iraq to speak to the troops, care packages exceeding one million, and national recognition. This heartwarming story will tell you of the happy days, the emotional moments, the surprise visits, the tragic phone calls, and the satisfying feeling of knowing you made a difference in a soldier’s life and in a family’s fear brought on by the separation. This is the story of helping others, of sharing pain and grief, of laughing together, and of knowing when the opportunity came to do something good for your country, you stepped up and took the plunge. It is a story of patriotism, a story of giving, a story of being true Americans.

A central question in political science is who governs and how. Typically political scientists attempt to answer this question by relying upon either empirical analysis, which explains existing political practices, or normative analysis, which prescribes ideal political practices. Political scientist Paul Schumaker rejects this distinction between empirical and normative theory. Instead, he weds the two approaches to create the new analytical mode he calls critical pluralism. With it he can measure variances in government from pluralist/democratic ideals and still provide theoretical explanations of why the variances occurred. Schumaker uses critical pluralism to describe, explain, and evaluate variations in three key measures of democratic performance: responsible representation, complex equality, and principle-policy congruence. To test his framework and methodology he analyzes 29 community issues that arose in Lawrence, Kansas, between 1977 and 1987. The results of his study—one of the most comprehensive databases ever in the study of community politics—will be of interest to those who study community power. The conceptual framework itself and methodology used in assessing democratic performance will have a lasting impact on the way community government is studied.