Player Season: The Pickup Artist Who Hacked Nike

by Brad Stephenson

  Chris wiped his eyes and Justin yawned while we grabbed our suitcases out of the trunk in front of the downtown Tampa hotel. It was 9:30am, and Kendall was waiting in the lobby with her friends, just like I had planned.

  In essence, I was running an escort service. However, the girls were never paid and the clients never paid me either, unless you count free trips and hotel rooms; which I did.

  The girls, on the other hand, were able to tell their friends who they hooked up with. Which, after years of research, is apparently very valuable to them. Go figure.

  Kendall and her friends sprung off the multi-colored striped couch and scurried to the entrance to greet us, but we were tired and in no mood for small talk. I took Kendall to my room and I can only imagine they did the same with the others.

  A few hours later, "Sienna", the girl who was with Justin, joined Kendall and I in my room.

  "Justin said he was going to sleep," uttered the confused Sienna.

  "Ha, he kicked you out!" Kendall blurted out.

  "You know, we could have a threesome," I intervened.

  Kendall and Sienna looked at me.

  Kendall looked at Sienna.

  Sienna looked at Kendall.

  Kendall territorially looked back at me.

  "Ha, you're funny," said Kendall, killing my dream.

  It wasn't funny to me. The elusive threesome escaped my grasp once again. I rationalized it, like a sociopath, by deciding Kendall wasn't in the mood to share. Then it made me wonder; if I was supposedly so good at talking to girls, then why couldn't I convince them to have a threesome? It left me feeling unaccomplished.

  Since it was Thursday, and the first game wasn't until Friday; we decided to meet up with BJ for a night on the town.

  Per BJ's request, I called a girl at the bar to get us a table. Which highlighted an often seen fact in their life; when you're rich, people constantly try to rip you off.

  "Hey, do you have a table?" I asked her, from the parking lot.

  "Who are you with?" she asked.

  "BJ, Justin and his teammate Chris," I told her.

  "Ok, well we're kind of packed. I can get you one, but it's going to be $1,000," she quoted.

  "Yeah, let me think about it," I avoided, before hanging up.

  "That's bullshit! She said she wants a grand, let me go inside real quick and sort this out," I told my disgruntled mates.

  I stormed into the club intent on changing their offer, and not just to a lower price; I wanted it for free. Instead of seeking out the girl who wielded no real power, I found the manager and stated my case.

  "You and I both know a table doesn't cost that much, you're trying to squeeze them. Even if it does, their presence alone will bring more people to your bar. You should be giving it to them for free," I candidly told him.

  "That's fine. We'll set it up now," he said, confirming the fluctuated price.

  The point is this; without someone frugal like me, the $1,000 would have been paid, because negotiating a price makes a multi-millionaire look like an asshole. Now they were happy, it was a rare occasion for someone to save them money – financial managers included.

  Within minutes of sitting down in our rightfully free seats, a frenzy of people surrounded us. Baseball was a big deal in Tampa, and everyone knew Justin was in town to play his brother. I could hear the chatter, and for the first time some of them were talking about me.

  "Who's that?" a female onlooker asked another.

  "He's like Turtle from Entourage, but with baseball players," the other answered.

  I accepted their assessment. After years of hearing chatter about everyone but me, they could have said I was like Rodney Dangerfield from the movie Back to School and I still would have been satisfied.

  On this night, I met a girl named Brooke, who has a brother in the big leagues, and she was all over me. She was pretty, athletic, curvy and very friendly. At the end of the night, I ditched the other suitable alternatives and took her back to the hotel.

  Normally, some kissing and touching occurs immediately after you close the door. Not this time, she sat on the end of the bed wanting to talk, a nightmare scenario when the alternatives were willing to commit heinous acts. I needed a way out, and within moments it emerged.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  "What the hell you doing? Open the damn door!" Justin demanded.

  The door swung open and there stood a delighted Justin; smiling widely with Kendall and Sienna on each arm.

  "We're trying to kick it! Who you in here with?" said Justin, while he peeked over my shoulder to see Brooke with her legs crossed on the bed.

  I turned around, looked at Brooke, squinted my eyes and leaned my head to the side while shrugging my shoulders. She took the hint, grabbed her purse and exited the room briskly without saying so much as a word to anyone.

  The four of us slipped out of our clothes before jumping in the hotel hot tub, and the rest of the night persisted, as one should expect.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

  Someone savagely pounded on the door, many hours after I fell asleep. The only question was, how many hours? The curtains completely covered the windows and the room was pitch dark. I wasn't sure if it was morning time or if I slept until the following night.

  Furthermore, I had no idea who was at the door. They knocked like they were police, so I replayed every step from the night before. After concluding I hadn't done anything illegal, I tiptoed my way to the door and looked through the peephole – it was BJ.

  "B-bad, you got any condoms?" he asked, wired up like a crack fiend.

  "What time is it?" I asked back, trying to get a scope on reality.

  "It's eight man," BJ answered, like I was stupid for not knowing.

  "In the morning? You can't be serious. Why are you asking me for condoms at eight in the morning?" I truly wondered.

  "Man, never mind all that. Do you have any or not?" he said, as if my questions were out of line.

  "Hah. No, I don't," I told him.

  "I forgot your nasty ass never uses condoms. Aight, I'm out," BJ miffed, before disappearing down the hall.

  I was perplexed. Their game didn't start for 11 hours I didn't even know why he was awake, let alone why he decided to violently wake me up, ask for condoms and then slander me when I couldn't produce. Classic BJ.

  Once I woke up on my own accord, everyone was already at the field except for the Rays starting pitcher, David Price. Unlike any other level of baseball, he was allowed to show up a few hours before game time, and it wasn't hard to guess what he was doing; he was playing FIFA soccer on Xbox.

  I walked in his condo and wasn't surprised at all to see his tall, lanky body stretched out on the floor in front of the TV. He wore white Nike sandals, gray Jordan sweatpants and a dark t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. His face was covered with trimmed stubble and his eyes were doing just as I expected; focusing on his current game of FIFA.

  "Let me know when you're ready," I told him, submitting my challenge.

  "I'm always ready, you're gonna get whipped!" he fired back.

  For the next few hours, we didn't move an inch, unless it was to change direction on the joystick. Trash was talked after every goal scored and taunting noises were let out upon every deceptive juke move; then I chose to be a little more deceptive by giving him false advice on how to pitch to Justin.

  "What do you think Justin will do against you?" I baited him.

  "He's going to strike out, without question," Price confidently answered.

  "Don't throw him anything on the inner half of the plate. I've been watching him all year, that's the only thing he looks for early in the count," I assured him.

  "Well if he's looking inside then I'll just have to paint the outside corner all night!" Price excitedly decided, thinking he did so on his own.

  He was unaware my loyalties were now with the Diamondbacks, so I texted Justin once I sat down at Tropicana Field, just an hour before the game began.

  "I told Pr
ice you only look for inside pitches, take his shit deep oppo!" my text read.

  'Oppo' meant opposite field, which is right field for a right-handed batter. 'Take his shit deep' meant to hit a home run, which Justin was more capable of accomplishing with an outside pitch than most other players. It was actually one of the stronger facets of his game.

  Justin stepped up to the plate for his first at-bat, and ripped a single up the middle. Then the fourth inning rolled around, and Justin dug in for his second at-bat. With three balls and one strike, Price falsely assumed Justin was looking for an inside pitch, but he didn't know Justin was provided 'inside' information.

  Price threw a fastball on the outside corner at the knees, just like he said he would do, and Justin crushed a line drive over the right field fence for a home run; exactly as planned. I smirked from the bleachers, Justin trotted around the bases and Price screamed at himself into his own glove.

  For the next few innings, I focused less on the game and more on the third row behind home plate; I was trying to spot Liz. It was aberrant to see her after all we went through together, albeit from a distance. You don't expect, or even don't want to see them functioning normally without you; but they are.

  Like a creep, I watched while she sipped diet coke, presumably with no ice, from my strategic perch behind the left field foul pole; I couldn't help but wonder if I was finally over her. My answer came the very next minute when I unlocked my iPhone and fell victim to my inner desire of making contact with her one last time.

  "Hey, do you want to meet?" my email read.

  Thirty minutes go by with no response. My phone died an hour later during the eighth inning.

  I wrote it off as a lost cause and proceeded back to BJ's house to get ready for another night out. Once inside, I plugged my iPhone into the charger and hopelessly checked to see if she responded...and she had.

  "Yeah," her email read.

  If my phone didn't die, I would have seen her again, in the same place we first met. Maybe it was fate or maybe I should have charged my phone more when I was playing Price in FIFA. Either way, my timeline for not being over her was slightly extended.

  On a different note, this night out also marked the beginning of a new realization for me; my websites were creating enemies.

  First, it was Longoria. When I entered the second-floor of the club to meet up with everyone, he was the first person I saw. He stood against a structured beam in the middle of the room, talking one-on-one with a girl, and we caught eyes for a second. Normally, he would have dropped what he was doing to acknowledge me and say hello. Not this time, he looked away and pretended like he didn't know me. I guess the stories I posted on PlayerSeason.com such as "Is Evan Longoria Gay?" were getting under his skin. I thought they were funny, but apparently he didn't.

  I wasn't going to let him big league me. In my mind, he was still in debt to me after messing around with Liz. So I countered his shunning by delivering a swift tap to his nuts, before proceeding to meet up with everyone else. I imagine this only made matters worse; he left soon after.

  The second enemy to surface was a guy, or man named Emil. He was Justin, BJ and David Wright's official memorabilia dealer. We knew each other for a while and always got along pretty well, but this was before I started ProspectMemorabilia.com, a site that mostly sold BJ, Justin and David Wright memorabilia.

  Emil sat at the circular-shaped table with all my hometown friends, wearing a light blue collared shirt, khaki pants and black boots. The second he became aware of my presence, he stood up, slid past everyone and left. I didn't hold any hard feelings towards him, but he obviously didn't feel the same.

  Longoria was different; I didn't care about offending him. I never expected someone like Emil to disavow me as a person just because I was trying to make some money on the side, even if I was doing the same line of work. If anything, it should have been a compliment. As they say, 'you can be successful and have enemies or you can be unsuccessful too, and you can have friends.'

  Up until this point, I was always beloved by everyone; it was the reason why girls liked me and powerful people let me in their inner circles. This night served as a forecast for my future and it marked the beginning of a transformation from being the favorite to becoming the most hated.

  In the meantime, there was still work to do. A short, pig-tailed girl walked by wearing skimpy denim shorts and a Tampa Bay Rays t-shirt, which was the equivalent to wearing a bull's-eye on her chest. Her name was Blair and she was promiscuous from the start, so I invited her on a triple-date to the casino with Justin, Sienna, BJ and Mike (one of BJ and Justin's lower-level agents).

  From 2am to 5am, the six of us sat around the high-rollers blackjack table swigging Johnny Walker's and coke, even though there was a 1 o'clock game the following day. Mike was equipped with a company bank account for the sole purpose of keeping BJ and Justin entertained. He continually increased his bets while comically leering at my new pig-tailed friend at the end of each hand; in a botched attempt to woo her.

  Just before the sun came up, Justin and I were dropped off in front of our hotel with two girls in tow.

  "Sienna has to go to your room, I'll never get to sleep if she comes with me," said an exhausted Justin.

  "I guess I can do that for you," I sarcastically replied, and then laughed like I had just hit the lotto.

  I stepped in my room and two girls hunkered down on each side of the bed. Once again, I was face-to-face with an opportunity to finalize my dream of conquering the elusive threesome.

  Blair bounced on top of me and the two of us began making out while Sienna rested just inches to my left. I slyly placed my hand on her leg and slowly rubbed back and forth; signaling my intent. Her blonde hair shifted, and she rolled over looking me dead in the eye. This was my moment, I was rounding first base thinking I just hit a home run, and then I was told it was actually a ground rule double.

  "I think I really like Justin," Sienna passionately confessed.

  "Is that so?" I asked, pretending to show interest.

  "Yeah, there's something about him and normally I don't get attached but I just really like him," Sienna professed, before staring down at the bed, apparently in deep thought.

  If I were selfish and willing to commit sabotage, I would have told her about the girl who currently lived at Justin's house in Arizona. That's not how I played the game though. Furthermore, she was probably unaware Justin knew I would try to sleep with her. It wasn't a normal understanding between two friends, but this is how we operated. Besides, nothing about our lives at the time was really normal in the first place.

  Another rule in my playbook was to not intentionally hurt girls feelings, so I decided to let her keep dreaming. I took Blair to the bathroom and finished the night under a more standard operational procedure.

  That didn't stop me from taking this picture when I woke up in the morning – at least it looked like I had a threesome.

  Then there was drama. Not with the girls, it was between BJ and Longoria, and it was televised on national TV.

  I still don't know why, but the two of them were face-to-face in the dugout screaming at one another. In fact, BJ was so fired up he had to be restrained!

  You can say I'm narcissistic (and you might be right) but I found it strange for this fight to happen the day after I tapped Longoria in the nuts. It also came the night after BJ and I had a blast hanging out together, which was reminiscent of the days I used to live with him, and he also knew my animosity towards Longoria was the reason I didn't stay in Tampa after Kazmir was traded.

  Maybe I'm wrong but I think a part of BJ wished I were still living there. The feeling would have been mutual; I couldn't recall one night we went out when something over-the-top or hilarious didn't occur. He was on par with my level of wildness, or I was on par with his; it really depended on what day of the week it was.

  After the game, Justin and I sat down on two leather stools in the lobby of the hotel before he had to leave town.
For the first time since the dustup that led to him kicking me out; we had a private one-on-one talk.

  "Ashley asked me if I messed around with any girls while I was here," Justin laughed.

  "What did you say?" I asked.

  "I told her I did," he said, and casually took a swig of water.

  "That probably wasn't a good idea," I told him.

  "It is what it is," Justin remarked.

  "You have a girlfriend living with you who is doesn't care if you mess around with other girls. Maybe my opinion is bias because you know I don't like her, but does that ever make you think about her intentions?" I asked him, squinting my eyes in anticipation to make sense of his response.

  "If I didn't have a girl at the house then I would be going out every night, and that wouldn't be good for me. Plus, she cooks food and takes care of my dog," he explained, then began scratching the label off his water bottle.

  "I'm just saying, you have 50 million to protect now," I said, making my closing argument.

  My words weren't going to change anything, but I hoped it would at least make him think about it. He left town shortly after, as for me, I wanted to spend a few more days in Tampa.

  With the Rays also being out of town, my options were limited. Luckily David Price was nice enough to let me stay at his place with his roommate Terry, who was also his friend from high school.

  Terry was a short Asian with buzzed hair and plenty of tattoos. His energy level and intensity were from another planet; the guy was always moving around, he was simply plugged in.

  First order of business was to get a girl over. Her name was "Holly", she had auburn hair and eye-popping breasts; no further explanation needed. She was the type of girls who was only attracted to assholes, and I just happened to be playing the part when I met her two nights prior.

  "You know she be hooking up with Longoria all the time," Terry whispered to me when Holly walked in.

  "Perfect," I told him.

  It's not often one is able to get with a beautiful girl and enact their revenge at the same time. I was obligated to follow through, so I did.