Player Season: The Pickup Artist Who Hacked Nike (25 page)

"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.

When I awoke the next morning at Holly's apartment, I realized I missed my flight back to Arizona; back to Price's place I went.

"I have two chicks coming over!" Terry emphatically briefed me.

"Very nice," I replied.

"Yeah, but they're bring some MDMA," said Terry, looking for my reaction.

"What's that?" I honestly answered.

"It's ecstasy fool!" Terry responded.

"Oh, I've never done that. What's it like?" I asked.

"It'll make you feel really good for a few hours. But I have to warn you; when you wake up in the morning, you're going to feel all depressed like a piece of shit!" Terry hilariously explained.

I was always willing to try something once.

The girls came over and broke out a whitish conglomerated substance onto the black marble countertop. One of the girls snorted it and the other put some on her tongue – I chose the latter route.

I gently licked my finger and pressed it into the edge of the pile, placed it on my tongue and then washed it down with a fresh can of 7-up.

Twenty minutes later, everyone else in the room was allegedly feeling the effects, but I wasn't. It didn't make sense, I took the same amount as they did but wasn't affected in the slightest measure.

Not wanting to spoil the fun, I sat back and didn't express my disappointment in this supposed miracle drug. On the other hand, they were having a ball. Terry turned the iPod on to the song 'Billie Jean' by Michael Jackson and the girls immediately took their shoes off and started moonwalking. I just sat back and recorded it on video (currently on YouTube).

I woke up the following day a worthless soul. It's hard to describe, but I honestly didn't want to be alive; I just wanted to sleep until the next day. What was the point of taking a drug that makes you feel like a human sloth?

"Man, what the hell," I said to Terry, with no emotion.

"I told you! You feel like a piece of shit right?" Terry asked, still stoked.

"Worse," I told him.

"Man, I'll take you to get some Gatorade before we go to the airport, you'll feel better," Terry assured me.

Gatorade didn't make me feel better, but sleeping the entire cross-country flight did. One thing was for sure – ecstasy was permanently banned from my life.

Once again, I was back in Dave's downstairs office. It was no longer just a center for educational enlightenment; it became a war room.

Similar to Obama asking his closest advisor for advice during the hunt for Bin Laden, but our operation was on a much smaller scale. The purpose wasn't nearly as important either, in fact, it was comical. My plan was to trick athletes and then post the stories on my website. The only question was...how do you trick professional athletes?

The first exploratory step was to figure out their weakness. All I needed to do was look next-door at Justin's situation to come up with the answer; their weakness was girls.

So I knew I was going to somehow incorporate girls to trick them, but I needed to do it in a way where I could post proof of it online. Naturally, Facebook came to mind.

I got on my laptop and created three fake profiles of hot girls. One was blonde, one was black and the other was Natalia. Pictures of the first two were found through searching popular girl names at random, but those of the latter were much easier to come by.

Then I gave them all new names, or aliases, and thoroughly filled out their fictitious background and description. Each one was given a different location along with a favorite quote from Marilyn Monroe; I was selling it.

I added friends, made wall comments and posted comments on their pictures from the other girls' accounts for the next two weeks. Finally, with a few hundred friends, I was ready to begin my mission.

The first target was, of course, Evan Longoria.

My blonde girl profile seemed appropriate. It also seemed fitting to make her from New York, an ode to the birthplace of our feud.

Maybe I have a twisted sense of humor, but I thought it was hilarious. I'm not much of a judge though.

The next target was Bryce Harper, who just one month before this was drafted #1 overall to the Washington Nationals.

Why was he targeted? For one, he was 18 years old, which made him very susceptible to trickery. More importantly, he just beat Justin's record for a signing bonus out of high school, and he needed to pay his dues.

If it's not broke, don't fix it. Longoria's chat was yet to be revealed, so I used the same girl on Bryce Harper. It worked quite well.

Apparently he doesn't get any girls, that don't like him!!! "hah"

After fooling Bryce 'Rico Suave' Harper, I moved into my own apartment. Five months went by since I first moved in with Dave, and I learned more from him than I did during three years of college.

Honestly, I didn't want to leave. I really wanted to keep learning but he already gave me a place to live, purchased a laptop for me and supplied an education I could use for the rest of my life; I didn't want to overstay my welcome.

Plus, my new apartment was less than a mile away.

I wondered if he got as much out of it as I did.

My answer came one week after I moved out of his house – when two smoking hot 19 year-old girls moved in.