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“Let me get this straight: they’re going to come up to your room and strip down to their bra and panties. And then you’re going to take their picture,” Allard said after the girls had all left.
“Yeah. I need to send the pictures to a modeling agency so they can see the girls’ bodies better.”
“And you date Halle James?” Shane asked.
“I thought you all knew that,” I said to my teammates.
“I thought they were pulling our legs,” Logan said, tilting his head towards Roc, Yuri, and Phil.
“Can you adopt me?” Tristan asked.
“Better yet, do you need help taking the pictures?” Daz asked.
“How about I invite them to the game and then for ice cream afterward? Maybe you can man-up and talk to them,” I suggested.
They all gave me the stink eye. I just shrugged.
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Tracy ended up taking the pictures with Pam’s help. Fritz had stepped in and nixed my plans. I was surprised my mom hadn’t heard about it. She had gone shopping with several of the moms while Dad was off playing golf. So, the parental units hadn’t heard anything, yet.
While Tracy and Pam were playing amateur photographer, I grabbed a group of guys, and we went to play a little football.
Coach Mason wanted me to work on fade passes. The name of the pass is misleading. The pass is mostly a vertical pass upfield of medium distance. From the name, you would assume that the receiver runs straight up the field and then moves toward, or fades, to the sideline. People mistakenly think the quarterback will throw the ball towards the sideline.
The play is designed to be thrown against press man coverage. That means the defender is one-on-one with the receiver and plays him tightly. The trick to the play is that the receiver wants to basically run at the defender and get him to move out of the way. The receiver wants to have at least six to seven yards between himself and the sideline. As the receiver runs with the defender, the receiver leans into the defender a little. That would seem to be counterintuitive. You, as the receiver, want to be near the defender before breaking away at the last moment, and never too early. This lean will get the defender’s center of gravity and momentum going in the wrong direction.
The ‘fade’ portion of the play comes in once the football has been thrown, but not before. The receiver will ‘fade’ to the ball and catch it at its highest point. Done correctly, it’s all but unstoppable.
This played into Coach Mason’s style of deep vertical strikes. This was just a shorter version of that philosophy. The key was the timing of the play, and I was instructed to throw it to both Phil and Roc until we could do it in our sleep. It seemed he wanted to move up the field in 15- to 20-yard chunks, giving an alternative to always going deep.
The defense for the fade was safety help over the top. Unlike the cornerback, who was focused on the receiver, the safety could see the play develop as he closed. One of my reads had to be on the safety because if he broke on the ball, he might very well intercept the pass.
If we could get Roc or Phil one-on-one with a cornerback, we would eat them up with this play, especially with the threat of the deep ball. I could see it being even more effective with someone like Wolf, who was six-five. His height was already a problem for the average corner. If he could create some separation, it wouldn’t be fair.
Already I’d learned something new from Coach Mason, and I wasn’t even in camp yet. I couldn’t wait to get back. I was hoping that a full season of his coaching would set me apart once I reached college.
When we got back, Tyler called and wanted the contact information for four of the Mexican calendar girls.
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Tonight’s game was against Nicaragua. We were playing at the sketchy stadium, Ciudad Deportiva. This was a big game because we were the only two undefeated teams left in the tournament at 3–0.
The game was being broadcast across Central and South America. I found it amusing that we were getting very little coverage in the US; this tournament was a much bigger deal south of the border. I was also the one getting the most exposure because I could put together a few passable sentences in Spanish.
The biggest bounce had come from the tigers I’d bought. That had made the news back home. On that front, the people from Busch Gardens would be here tomorrow to complete the rescue. They were set up to handle big cats humanely and even had adult tigers.
Nicaragua had nearly twice as many fans at the game as we did. I was amused at their rowdy chants. Hopefully, Brook was taking note because I could see this used to effect during a football game. I realized that my fellow teammates really didn’t know what to think of some of the fans because up north, the games were much more subdued.
Luke Cash started on the mound for us. I got us off to a good start by walking and stealing a base, and ended up scoring on a sacrifice groundout by Nick Golden, our first baseman. The score remained 1–0 into the top of the fourth when Nicaragua earned one back on an RBI double to make it 1–1.
I was up first in the seventh. Both teams had settled into a defensive struggle. The Nicaraguan fielders had made some great plays, and their pitcher had held us down for the most part. Before I stepped out to bat, Coach Kingwood stopped me.
“His pitch count is starting to get up there. I think this is the inning we get to him. If you can get a hit, it might make him start to worry, and we can add some more.”
I nodded and strolled up to the plate with the idea of hitting something. He’d walked me twice and fooled me the last time up. All I wanted was for him to make one mistake. Our fans started the “USA” chant when I came up. I smiled when the Nicaraguans added “Sucks.”
“I think you’re going to strike out,” their catcher said in English as bad as my Spanish.
“Sí, could be,” I said with a smile to let him know he wasn’t getting to me. “Then again, he might decide to throw me his weak fastball.”
The umpire snorted at our comments.
“Play ball,” he said in Spanish.
I stepped up to the plate and put a little extra wiggle in my hips. Then I dropped into the zone, and everything began to fade away except the task at hand. I silently thanked the catcher for answering my request for a fastball. I was a little excited and crushed the ball to left-center field. It would have been a stand-up double, but the ball took a funny bounce off the wall which allowed me to make it to third. Mitch followed with a single that scored me. Nick was up next, and on the first pitch, Mitch stole second and was granted a free pass to third on defensive interference by the shortstop. Nick hit a double to score Mitch. That was where the inning ended, giving us a 3–1 lead.
Luke was pulled from the game, and Daz, our middle reliever, was brought in. Daz wasn’t up to his usual standard as he loaded the bases with two outs. I just shook my head when he clipped the next batter to force in a run. He was pulled, and Allard came in to get us out of the inning with a 3–2 lead.
By the time the top of the ninth was through, we were down 5–4. We started the bottom of the ninth with a leadoff walk by Royce Greene, our third baseman. Royce was replaced by a pinch-runner who stole second during the next at-bat. Jared Cornish, our right fielder, had come to the plate with no outs and singled up the middle to score the pinch runner and tie the score at 5–5. Jared was picked off at first, but Tristan Pratt followed with a one-out double down the right-field line. A bunt single by Patrick Welch allowed Tristan to advance to third, and a sacrifice fly by Logan Greene allowed Tristan to cross the plate for the winning run.
It was good to see the bottom of the order come through for us. With the 6–5 win, we’d won our fourth game of the COPABE Pan American ‘AAA’ Championships and were the only undefeated team in the field. We now had a day off on Sunday. Our next game was a Monday-morning start against Columbia.