Sports Books 2025, Cleveland.com, Marc Bona, December 2025

FOOTBALL: Needs More Burritos

Ben Schulz, Palmetto Publishing, 225 pages, $9 approximately

The author’s novel focuses on a Detroit Lions superfan born and raised in Detroit and cheering for his beloved Lions. Dark humor tossed in with the power of faith leads to this football fandom story. It might take place in the Motor City, but fans in Cleveland can relate.

 

Tom Powers, MICHIGAN IN BOOKS Post # 97  August 26, 2024

Needs More Burritos by Ben Schulz

Leo was destined to be a dedicated, hopelessly addicted super fan of the Detroit Lions. He was born on December 29, 1957 the last time the Lions won a championship. His parents named him Leo, for lion of course, and his father was taking him to Lions home games almost before he was out of diapers. The Lions became the be all and end all of his life. He did poor in school, graduated nearly illiterate, poor at math, and without the slightest vocation skills. As he grows older his life spirals downward but year after year he somehow manages season tickets plus alcoholism and drug addiction on income from bagging groceries at Krogers. His life becomes a metaphor for more than half a century of disappointment and failure by the Lions. 

 

In spite of the above paragraph this is a lapel grabbing novel that pulls readers in and keeps them turning pages until the inspiring conclusion. Leo narrates his story and he has a singular, engaging, and surprising voice. It is off-beat, often humorous, poetic, has a penchant for lists, and readers can often feel a musical beat or cadence in the prose. Leo tells his story a decade per chapter. The narrative captures the cultural feel of each decade through the popular music, movies, and the demand for drugs. Leo of course reviews the Lions' record in each decade and his abysmal personal finances that go from bad to worse. Leo also describes the slow crumbling and destruction of Detroit decade by decade from a native's point of view. 

 

This is the kind of guy you don't know, don't see, don't understand, and at first don't know why you're caught up in his life. Well because he's a kid who flunked Spanish in high school but is proud he remembers taco means taco. More importantly it is watching Leo take one last, slim, and final chance at redemption.