Root Root Root for the Home Teams: A Chicago Fan’s Odyssey to Find the Meaning of Life Through Sports

Grab your seat next to a super fan who stopped at nothing to enter his generation's premier Chicago sports events.

This is your chance to experience the city's most memorable sports moments, from the two Bears’ Super Bowls, the White Sox pennant clincher in Anaheim and their World Series winner in Houston to the Blackhawks Game 7 disappointment in 1971 and the traumatic overtime win in Philadelphia for their first of three Cups. But it’s not just title thrills; you are also there for the dozens of ‘almosts’ that cloud the Second City’s grand sports tradition.

But more than a sports story, ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAMS draws from the personal experiences of a faithful fan. It is a tale of growing up a Chicago sports fan. It turns out there is more to sports than who wins and loses. A loving tale of a father who raised his sons to understand what sports teach us about family and what success in life really looks like.

Root Root Root is a love story of family, friends, and Chicago sports. For more than six decades, Tom Dobrez has been in the arena for hundreds of sporting events, along with his share of brushes with greatness. Come along as he chases Muhammad Ali’s Rolls Royce through his suburban hometown. Take a late-night shift, play Pop-A-Shot with Scottie Pippen, play 18 holes of golf with Toni Kukoc, and get a champagne shower from Mark Buehrle.

There’s plenty of heartbreak and redemption along the way. He losses his father on the eve of the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup championship. He celebrates the memory of his brother at a Bears game and deals with the challenge of passing on his loyalty to his children despite his shortcomings as a youth sports coach.

With these and other moral dilemmas of parenting and growing up a Croatian in Chicago’s south suburbs, Dobrez weaves a raconteur’s storytelling skill with life lessons all gained from watching sports.

© 2023 Across My Aprils (Audiobook): 9798987698839

Release date

Audiobook: 27 May 2023