Playing for Pizza (17 page)

“I don’t know.”

“You get to Denver, give me a call, okay?”

“Sure.”

A quick manly hug, and Sly was gone. Rick watched him dart through the side door, and he knew he would never see him again. And Sly would never again see Rick, or Sam, or any of the Italians. He would vanish from Italy and never return.

An hour later, Rick broke the news to Sam, who’d had a very long day with Hank and Claudelle. Sam actually threw a magazine against the wall while unloading the expected stream of profanities, and when he settled down, he said, “You know any running backs?”

“Yes, a great one. Franco.”

“Ha-ha. Americans, preferably college players who run real fast.”

“Not right offhand.”

“Can you call your agent?”

“I could, but he hasn’t been real prompt returning my calls. I think he has unofficially dumped me.”

“You’re on a roll.”

“I’m having a very good day, Sam.”

Chapter

17

At 8:00 Monday evening, the Panthers began arriving at the field. The mood was quiet and gloomy. They were embarrassed by the loss, and the news that half the offense had just fled town did not help their spirits. Rick sat on a stool in front of his locker, his back to everyone, his head buried in the playbook. He could feel the stares and the resentment, and he knew he had been terribly wrong. Maybe it was just a club sport, but winning meant something. Commitment meant even more.

He slowly flipped the pages, looking blankly at the Xs and Os. Whoever created them assumed the offense had a tailback who could run and a receiver who could catch. Rick could deliver the ball, but if there was no one on the other end, the stats simply recorded another incompletion.

Fabrizio had not been seen. His locker was empty.

Sam got their attention and had a few measured words for the team. No sense yelling. His players felt bad enough. Yesterday’s game was over, and there was another in six days. He delivered the news about Sly, though the gossip had made the rounds.

Their next opponent was Bologna, traditionally a
strong team that usually played in the Super Bowl. Sam talked about the Warriors and made them sound rather fierce. They had easily won their first two games with a punishing ground attack led by a tailback named Montrose, who had once played at Rutgers. Montrose was new to the league, and his legend was growing by the week. Yesterday, against the Rome Gladiators, he carried the ball twenty-eight times for over three hundred yards and four touchdowns.

Pietro vowed, loudly, to break his leg, and this was well received by the team.

After a halfhearted pep talk, the team filed out of the locker room and jogged onto the field. The day after a game, most of the players were stiff and sore. Alex worked them gently through some light stretching and exercises, then they divided into offense and defense.

Rick’s suggestion for a new offense was to move Trey from free safety to wide receiver, and throw him the ball thirty times a game. Trey had speed, great hands, quickness, and he’d played wideout in high school. Sam was cool to the idea, primarily because it came from Rick and at the moment he was barely talking to his quarterback. Halfway through the workout, though, Sam issued an open call for anyone who might consider playing receiver. Rick and Alberto tossed easy passes to a dozen prospects for half an hour, after which Sam called Trey over and made the switch. His presence on offense left a huge gap on defense.

“If we can’t stop them, maybe we can outscore them,” Sam mumbled as he scratched his cap.

“Let’s go watch film,” he said, and then blew his whistle.

Monday night film meant cold beer and some laughs, exactly what the team needed. Bottles of Peroni, the national favorite, were handed out, and the mood lightened considerably. Sam chose to ignore the Rhinos tape and dwell on Bologna. On defense, the Warriors were big across the front and had a strong safety who had played two years of arena ball and hit really hard. A headhunter.

Just what I need, thought Rick as he pulled a long gulp of beer. Another concussion. Montrose looked a step or two slow, the Rome defenders much slower, and Pietro and Silvio soon dismissed him as a threat. “We shall crush him,” Pietro said in plain English.

The beer flowed until after eleven, when Sam turned off the projector and dismissed them with the usual promise of a rough practice on Wednesday. Rick and Trey hung around, and when all the Italians had left, they opened another bottle with Sam.

“Mr. Bruncardo is reluctant to bring in another running back,” Sam said.

“Why?” Trey asked.

“Not sure, but I think it’s money. He’s really upset with the loss yesterday. If we can’t compete for the Super Bowl, why burn any more cash? This is not exactly a moneymaker for him anyway.”

“Why does he do it?” Rick asked.

“Excellent question. They have some funny tax
laws here in Italy, and he gets big write-offs for owning a sports team. Otherwise, it would not make sense.”

“The answer is Fabrizio,” Rick said.

“Forget him.”

“I’m serious. With Trey and Fabrizio we have two great receivers. No team in the league can afford two Americans in the secondary, so they can’t cover us. We don’t need a tailback. Franco can grunt out fifty yards a game and keep the defense honest. With Trey and Fabrizio, we play pitch and catch for four hundred yards.”

“I’m tired of that kid,” Sam said, and Fabrizio was no longer discussed.

Later, in a pub, Rick and Trey raised a glass to Sly and cursed him at the same time. Though neither would admit it, they were homesick and envied Sly for calling it quits.

·  ·  ·

Tuesday afternoon, Rick and Trey, along with Alberto, the dutiful understudy, met Sam at the field and for three hours worked on precision routes, timing, hand signals, and a general overhaul of the offense. Nino arrived late for the party. Sam informed him they were switching to a shotgun formation for the rest of the season, and he worked frantically on his snaps. With time, they improved to the point that Rick wasn’t chasing them around the backfield.

Wednesday night, in full pads, Rick spread the receivers, Trey and Claudio, and began firing passes
everywhere. Slants, hooks, posts, curls—every pattern worked. He threw to Claudio often enough to keep the defense honest, and every tenth play he stuck the ball in Franco’s gut for a little violence at the line. Trey was unstoppable. After an hour of sprinting up and down the field, he needed a break. The offense, almost shut out by a weak Milan team three days earlier, now seemed capable of scoring at will. The team rallied from its slumber and came alive. Nino began trashtalking the defense, and he and Pietro were soon cussing back and forth. Someone threw a punch, a quick brawl ensued, and when Sam broke it up, he was the happiest guy in Parma. He saw what every coach wanted—emotion, fire, and anger!

He made them quit at 10:30. The locker room was chaos; the air was full of dirty socks, dirty jokes, insults, threats of stealing girlfriends. Things were back to normal. The Panthers were ready for war.

·  ·  ·

The call came on Sam’s cell. The man identified himself as a lawyer and had something to do with athletics and marketing. He spoke rapid Italian, and over the phone it sounded even more urgent. Sam often survived by reading lips and hand gestures.

The lawyer finally got to the point. He represented Fabrizio, and Sam at first thought the kid was in trouble. Not hardly. The lawyer was also a sports agent, with many soccer and basketball players on his roster, and he wanted to negotiate a contract for his client.

Sam’s jaw dropped an inch or two. Agents? Here in Italy?

There goes the game.

“That son of a bitch walked off the field in the middle of a game,” Sam said in the rough Italian equivalent.

“He was upset. He is sorry. It’s obvious you can’t win without him.”

Sam bit his tongue, counted to five. Keep cool, he told himself. A contract meant money, something no Italian Panther had ever sought. There were rumors that some of the Italians in Bergamo got paid, but it was unheard-of in the rest of the league.

Play along, Sam thought. “What kind of contract do you have in mind?” he asked, rather businesslike.

“He’s a great player, you know. Probably the best Italian ever, don’t you think? I value him at two thousand euros a month.”

“Two thousand,” Sam repeated.

Then the usual agent’s trick. “And we are talking to other teams.”

“Good. Keep talking. We’re not interested.”

“He might consider less, but not much.”

“The answer is no, pal. And tell the kid to stay away from our field. He might get a leg broke.”

·  ·  ·

Charley Cray of the
Cleveland Post
slithered into Parma late Saturday afternoon. One of his many readers had stumbled across the Panthers’ Web site and
was intrigued by the news that the Greatest Goat on Cray’s list was hiding in Italy.

The story was simply too good to ignore.

Sunday, Cray got in a cab at his hotel and tried to explain where he wanted to go. The driver was not familiar with
“football americano”
and had no idea where the field was. Great, thought Cray. The cabbies can’t even find the field. The story was growing richer by the hour.

He finally arrived at Stadio Lanfranchi thirty minutes before kickoff. He counted 145 people in the stands, 40 Panthers in black and silver, 36 Warriors in white and blue, one black face on each team. At kick-off, he estimated the crowd at 850.

Late that night, he finished his story and zipped it around the world to Cleveland, in plenty of time for the Monday morning sports special. He could not remember having so much fun. It read:

BIG CHEESE IN THE PIZZA LEAGUE

(PARMA, ITALY). In his miserable NFL career, Rick Dockery completed 16 passes for 241 yards, and that was with six different teams over four years. Today, playing for the Panthers of Parma in Italy’s version of the NFL, Dockery exceeded those numbers. In the first half!

21 completions, 275 yards, 4 touchdowns, and, the most unbelievable stat of all—no interceptions.

Is this the same quarterback who single-handedly threw away the AFC title game? The same no-name signed by the Browns late last season
for reasons still unknown and now considered the Greatest Goat in the history of pro football?

Yes, this is Signor Dockery. And on this lovely spring day in the Po valley he was simply masterful—throwing beautiful spirals, standing bravely in the pocket, reading the defense (word used loosely), and, believe it or not, scrambling for yardage when necessary. Rick Dockery has finally found his game. He’s The Man playing with a bunch of overgrown boys.

Before a noisy crowd of fewer than a thousand, and on a rugby pitch 90 yards long, the Panthers of Parma hosted the Warriors of Bologna. Either team would be a 20-point underdog against Slippery Rock, but who cares? Under Italian rules, each team can have up to three Americans. Dockery’s favorite receiver today was Trey Colby, a rather thin young man who once played at Ole Miss and could not, under any defensive scheme, manage to get himself covered by the Bologna secondary.

Colby ran wild and free. He caught three touchdowns in the first 10 minutes!

The other Panthers are rowdy young men who picked up the sport as a hobby later in life. Not a single one could start for a class 5A high school in Ohio. They are white, slow, small, and play football because they can’t play soccer or rugby.

(By the way, rugby, basketball, volleyball, swimming, motorbiking, and cycling all rank far above
football americano
in this part of the world.)

But the Warriors were no pushovers. Their quarterback played at Rhodes (where?—Memphis, D-3) and their tailback once carried the ball (58 times in 3 years) for Rutgers. Ray Montrose is his name and today he ran for 200 yards and 3 touchdowns, including the game winner with a minute to go.

That’s right, even here in Parma, Dockery can’t escape the ghosts of his past. Up 27–7 at halftime, he once again managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But, in all fairness, it wasn’t entirely his fault. On the first play of the second half, Trey Colby went high for an errant pass (surprise, surprise) and landed badly. He was hauled off the field with a compound fracture somewhere in his lower left leg. The offense sputtered, and Mr. Montrose began marching up and down the field. The Warriors put together a dramatic drive as time ran out and won 35–34.

Rick Dockery and his Panthers have lost their last two, and with only five games remaining their chances of making the play-offs look slim. There is an Italian Super Bowl in July, and evidently the Panthers thought Dockery could get them there.

They should have asked Browns fans. We would tell them to ditch this bum now and find a real quarterback, one from a junior college. And quick, before Dockery starts firing passes to the other team.

We know what this gunslinger can really do. Poor Parma Panthers.

Chapter

18

Rick and Sam waited like expectant fathers at the end of a hallway on the second floor of the hospital. It was 11:30 Sunday night, and Trey had been in surgery since just after 8:00 p.m. The play was a thirty-yard pass at midfield, near the Panthers’ bench. Sam heard the crack of the fibula. Rick did not. He did, however, see the blood and the bone fragment protruding through the sock.

They said little as they killed time by reading magazines. Sam was of the opinion that they could still qualify for the play-offs if they won the remaining five games, a tough chore since Bergamo lay ahead. And Bolzano was strong again; they had just lost to Bergamo by two points. But winning seemed unlikely with so little offense left, and with no American in the secondary to stifle the passing game.