But, as Cray screamed at his readers, those were only single plays. Mr. Dockery, on the other hand, managed three--Count Them!--three horrible passes in only eleven minutes. Clearly, therefore, Rick Dockery is the unquestioned Greatest Goat in the history of professional sports. The verdict was undisputed, and Cray challenged anyone to argue with him. Rick flung the newspaper against the wall and called for another pill. In the darkness, alone with the door closed, he waited for the drug to work its magic, to knock him out clean, then, hopefully, to take him away forever. He slipped lower in the bed, pulled the sheet over his head, and began crying.
Chapter 2
It was snowing and Arnie was tired of Cleveland. He was at the airport, waiting for a flight to Las Vegas, his home, and against his better judgment he made a call to a lesser vice president of the Arizona Cardinals. At the moment, and not including Rick Dockery, Arnie had seven players in the NFL and four in Canada. He was, if he could be forced to admit it, a mid-list agent who, of course, had bigger
ambitions. Making phone calls for Rick Dockery was not going to help his credibility. Rick was arguably the most-talked-about player in the country at that dismal moment, but it wasn't the kind of buzz that Arnie needed. The vice president was polite but brief and couldn't wait to get off the phone. Arnie went to a bar, got a drink, and managed to find a seat far away from any television, since the only story still raging in Cleveland was the three interceptions by a quarterback no one even knew was on the team. The Browns had rolled through the season with a sputtering offense but a bruising defense, one that shattered records for yielding so few yards and points. They lost only once, and with each win a city starved for a Super Bowl became more and more enthralled with their old lovable losers. Suddenly, in one quick season, the Browns were the slayers. Had they won the previous Sunday, their Super Bowl oppo nent would be the Minnesota Vikings, a team they shut out and routed back in November.
The entire city could taste the sweetness of a championship. It all vanished in eleven horrifying minutes. Arnie ordered a second drink. Two salesmen at the next table were getting drunk and relishing the Browns' collapse. They were from Detroit. The hottest story of the day had been the firing of the Browns' general manager, Clyde Wacker, a man who had been hailed as a genius as recently as the preceding Saturday but was now the perfect scapegoat. Someone had to be fired, and not just Rick Dockery. When it was finally determined that Wacker had signed Dockery off waivers, back in October, the owner fired him. The execution was public--big press conference, lots of frowns and promises to run a tighter ship, et cetera. The Browns would be back! Arnie met Rick during his senior year at Iowa, at the end of a season that had begun with much promise but was fading into a third-tier bowl game. Rick started at quarterback his last two seasons, and he seemed well suited for a drop-back, open-style offense so rare in the Big Ten. At times he was brilliant--reading defenses, coolly checking off at the line, firing the ball with incredible velocity. His arm was amazing, undoubtedly the best in the upcoming draft. He could throw long and hard with a lightning quick release. But he was too erratic to be trusted, and when Buffalo picked him in the last round, it should have been a clear sign that he needed to pursue a master's degree or a stockbroker's
license. Instead, he went to Toronto for two miserable seasons, then began bouncing around the NFL. With a great arm, Rick was just barely good enough to make a roster. Every team needs a third string quarterback. In tryouts, and there had been many, he'd often dazzled coaches with his arm. Arnie watched one day in Kansas City when Rick threw a football eighty yards, then a few minutes later clocked a bullet at ninety miles an hour. But Arnie knew what most coaches now strongly suspected. Rick, for a football player, was afraid of contact. Not the incidental contact, not the quick and harmless tackle of a scrambling quarterback. Rick, with good reason, feared the rushing tackles and the blitzing linebackers.
There is a moment or two in every game when a quarterback has a receiver open, a split second to throw the ball, and a massive, roaring lineman charging the pocket unblocked. The quarterback has a choice. He can grit his teeth, sacrifice his body, put his team first, throw the damned ball, make the play, and get crushed, or he can tuck it and run and pray he lives for another play. Rick, as long as Arnie had watched him play, had never, not once, put the team first. At the first hint of a sack, Rick flinched and ran frantically for the sideline. And with a propensity for concussions, Arnie really couldn't blame him. He called a nephew of the owner of the Rams, who answered the phone with an icy "I hope this is not about Dockery."
"Well, yes, it is," Arnie managed to say. "The answer is hell no." Since Sunday, Arnie had spoken with about half of the NFL teams. The response from the Rams was pretty typical. Rick had no idea how completely his sad little career had been terminated. Watching a monitor on the wall, Arnie saw his flight get delayed. One more call, he vowed. One more effort to find Rick a job, and then he would move on to his other players.
The clients were from Portland, and though his last name was Webb and she was as pale as a Swede, they both claimed Italian blood and were keen to see the old country where it all began. Each spoke about six words of the language, and spoke them badly. Sam suspected they had picked up a travel book at the airport and memorized a few of the basics over the Atlantic. On their previous trip to Italy their driverguide had been a native with "dreadful" English, and so they had insisted on an American this time around, a good
Yank who could arrange meals and find tickets. After two days together, Sam was ready to ship them back to Portland.
Sam was neither a driver nor a guide. He was, however, very much an American, and since his primary job paid little, he moonlighted occasionally when his countrymen passed through and needed someone to hold their hands. He waited outside in the car while they had a very long dinner at Lazzaro's, an old trattoria in the center of the city. It was cold and snowing lightly, and as he sipped strong coffee, his thoughts returned to his roster, as they always did. His cell phone startled him. The call was from the United States. He said hello. "Sam Russo please," came a crisp greeting. "This is Sam."
"Coach Russo?"
"Yes, that's me." The caller identified himself as Arnie something or other, said he was an agent of some sort, and claimed to have been a manager on the 1988 Bucknell football team, a few years after Sam played there. Since they both went to Bucknell, they quickly found common ground, and after a few minutes of Do- You-Know-Soand-So they were friendly. For Sam, it was nice to chat with someone from his old school, albeit a total stranger. And it was rare that he got calls from agents. Arnie finally got to the point.
"Sure I watched the play-offs," Sam said. "Well, I represent Rick Dockery, and, well, the Browns let him go," Arnie said. No surprise there, Sam thought, but kept listening. "And he's looking around, considering his options. I heard the rumor that you need a quarterback." Sam almost dropped the phone. A real NFL quarterback playing in Parma? "It's not a rumor," he said. "My quarterback quit last week and took a coaching job somewhere in upstate New York. We'd love to have Dockery. Is he okay? Physically I mean?"
"Sure, just bruised a little, but he's ready to go."
"And he wants to play in Italy?"
"Maybe. We haven't discussed it yet, you know, he's still in the hospital, but we're looking at all the possibilities. Frankly, he needs a change of scenery."