Tackle Without a Team
Read Tackle Without a Team Online
Authors: Matt Christopher
Sports Stories
The Lucky Baseball Bat
Baseball Pals
Basketball Sparkplug
Little Lefty
Touchdown for Tommy
Break for the Basket
Baseball Flyhawk
Catcher with a Glass Arm
The Counterfeit Tackle
Miracle at the Plate
The Year Mom Won the Pennant
The Basket Counts
Catch That Pass!
Shortstop from Tokyo
Jackrabbit Goalie
The Fox Steals Home
Johnny Long Legs
Look Who’s Playing First Base
Tough to Tackle
The Kid Who Only Hit Homers
Face-Off
Mystery Coach
Ice Magic
No Arm in Left Field
Jinx Glove
Front Court Hex
The Team That Stopped Moving
Glue Fingers
The Pigeon with the Tennis Elbow
The Submarine Pitch
Power Play
Football Fugitive
Johnny No Hit
Soccer Halfback
Diamond Champs
Dirt Bike Racer
The Dog That Called the Signals
The Dog That Stole Football Plays
Drag-Strip Racer
Run, Billy, Run
Tight End
The Twenty-One-Mile Swim
Wild Pitch
Dirt Bike Runaway
The Great Quarterback Switch
Supercharged Infield
The Hockey Machine
Red-Hot Hightops
Tackle Without a Team
Animal Stories
Desperate Search
Stranded
Earthquake
Devil Pony
Text copyright © 1989 by Matthew F Christopher
Illustrations copyright © 1989 by Little, Brown and Company
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may
quote brief passages in a review.
Hachette Book Group
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First eBook Edition: December 2009
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, are coincidental
and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-09588-4
Contents
The #1 Sports Writer for Kids: MATT CHRISTOPHER
to Joe and Kathy
NE
“Seventeen Fly,” Rick Seaver said.
He clapped his hands once. The huddle broke, and all eleven football players scampered to their positions on the dry, sunbaked
field.
“Down! Set!”
Red and gray uniforms, most of them still clean and unsmudged, and matching helmets flashed before Scott Kramer’s eyes as
he crouched down, dug his toes into the turf in his right tackle spot, and faced the tackle in front of him. Left tackle Joe
Salerno’s eyes, peering through his metal face mask, were like two dark, white-rimmed holes.
The Royals were leading by a narrow margin, 14–13. It was the middle of the second quarter, the ball was the Greyhawks’ on
their own nine yard line, and it was first down. Unless Rick could pull off the 17 Fly play, or any play he might think of
in the next three downs, the Royals had a good chance of pushing that score up by another six or seven points.
“Brace up, Kramer.” Joe’s low-pitched remark sounded like a snarl. “I’m going to throw you for a loss.”
Scott smiled. Ever since the game had started, the broad-shouldered left tackle had tried to intimidate him with sarcastic
remarks but never managed to do what he said he’d do.
“You talk too much, Joe,” Scott said.
“Hep! Hep! Hep!” Rick barked.
The ball was snapped. Both teams rushed toward each other across the scrimmage line. Helmets and shoulder pads clashed, breaths
heaved. Scott could hear his own and Joe Salerno’s as he ducked low and to the side in an effort to stop Joe from getting
through to Rick. Only once had Joe been able to do so, and that
was because Scott had slipped on the grass and lost control of the defensive tackle.
The 17 Fly was a pass play. It required Rick, the quarterback, to turn halfway around with the ball, fake a handoff to a running
back behind him — which, in this case, was Monk Robertson — then fade back and heave a pass to the right end, Squint Oliver,
who would be crisscrossing down the field to the far left.
Protecting Squint from the Royals’ backfield defense would be Karl Draper and Kear Nguyen, left tight end and running back
respectively. The play had worked early in the first quarter, putting the Greyhawks in a position to score their first touchdown.
This was only the second time that Rick had called for it. Coach Tom Dresso had advised him not to call it too often. “No
sense in letting the opposition catch on to your plays,” he’d said.
Scott managed to hold off Joe long enough for the play to be executed, and the roar from the crowd told him it had worked.
But not for a touchdown. Squint had caught Rick’s pass on their twenty-eight yard line and managed to
run to the forty-one before the Royals’ safety man tackled him.
First down and ten.
Scott met Kear coming toward him, and they exchanged high fives.
“What’re you doing after the game?” Kear asked, his eyes smiling through his face mask. He was fourteen, an inch taller than
Scott, and thinner.
“Nothing special,” Scott answered. “Got something in mind?”
“Yeah. A hot fudge sundae!” Kear laughed.
“Good idea,” Scott said, smacking his lips. “You treating?”
“Me? On my stinky income?” Kear laughed again. “I’ll settle for a plain chocolate ice cream cone.”
Scott grinned. “Me, too.”
“Huddle!” Rick’s voice cut into their idle chatter.
The two friends turned and headed toward the quarterback, who stood, legs straddled, behind the line of scrimmage.
“Okay, guys,” Rick said as the team huddled. “Powerhouse Left.”
“About time,” Monk grunted.
Rick grinned at the running back who doubled as linebacker on defense. “Put us across the border, Monk,” he said, then clapped
his hands. “Let’s go!”
The team broke from the huddle, scrambled to the line of scrimmage, and once again Scott found himself face-to-face with the
Royals’ defensive tackle, Joe Salerno.
“Coming this way, right?” Joe said, trying to guess the upcoming play.
Scott’s expression didn’t change. “Keep guessing, Joe,” he said.
Rick’s voice boomed through the silence. “Hep! Hep! Hep!”
Lenny Baccus centered the ball. Rick grabbed it, turned, and handed it off to Monk. The burly fullback headed for a hole that
was barely wide enough for a sheet of paper to pass through. A pair of hands circled his waist and brought him down for no
gain.
“Come on, Bill!” Monk barked at the big right guard as he scrambled to his feet. “You watching this game or playing it?”
Bill Lowry, his eyes like lead balls, looked at
him but said nothing. He seldom did. Sometimes Scott almost felt sorry for him. Bill took a lot of gaff.
Second and still ten.
“How about Powerhouse Right?” Scott suggested in the huddle as he looked at Rick. “I think I can handle Salerno.”
“I got a better idea,” Monk cut in. “Powerhouse Left Option.”
Rick’s gaze shot to him and back to Scott. “You guys forget? I’m calling the shots. Okay?”
“Sorry,” Scott said.
Monk said nothing.
“Twenty-seven Zero,” Rick said.
“All
right
!” Kear exclaimed, grinning.
Standing beside Scott, he slapped Scott on the rump as the team broke out of the huddle.
“Watch me. This is my play — maybe,” he said, his teeth white and shiny, as he displayed his familiar grin.
Scott laughed. “Maybe” meant that Kear might not even get to carry the ball. It depended on what Rick’s chances were of carrying
it through the liz (left) side of the line himself.
Rick barked signals. The ball was snapped.
As the option play began to take form, Scott lunged at Joe Salerno for a shoulder block. But this time Joe faked Scott out,
diving low under his right arm, scrambling on his knees for a yard or so, then getting to his feet and bolting after Rick.
Rick, pulling the ball under his right arm, started to sprint around left end.
Scott turned in time to see Joe reach for him, grab Rick’s right leg, and stop him on the spot for a two-yard loss.
A roar burst from the Royals’ fans as the referee took the ball from Rick and spotted it on the Greyhawks’ thirty-nine yard
line.
“Where were you on
that
play, Kramer?” Monk snarled. “He went through you like water through a sieve.”
Scott fumed but said nothing. What was there to say? He knew he had goofed. He had underestimated the Royals’ tackle. But
what really got under his skin was Monk’s sarcasm. The guy seemed to thrive on insults. And anybody was his target.
“He should’ve passed it off to me,” Kear said quietly to Scott. “I went right by him, expecting he would. But he didn’t.”
Scott nodded. “The way the play went, I wish he had, too,” he agreed.
They joined the other team members in the huddle.
“Sorry, Rick,” Scott said to the quarterback. “My fault.”
Rick offered no comment. He called for a pass play — a throw that crisscrossed the field from left to right, almost the exact
opposite of the 17 Fly.
The teams got to the line of scrimmage. Signals were called. The ball was snapped.
Rick feinted a pass toward the left side of the field, then heaved a spiraling pass to the tight end, Squint Oliver. Daren
Gibson, playing safety for the Royals, leaped, grabbed the ball out of Squint’s hands, and headed toward the open field. Scott
saw the play after he shoulder-blocked Salerno, then bounced his right shoulder off a linebacker who, off balance, dropped
to the ground.
“Oh, no!” Scott murmured as he saw Daren racing toward the sideline, his legs churning like pistons. Without a second thought
he started to sprint after the goal-heading runner.
Scott lunged at him on the thirty-six and knocked him out of bounds on the thirty-three, spilling Daren onto the green grass
behind the white border line before falling down on it himself.
Daren got up, giving Scott a dirty look, as if Scott had done him an injustice by not letting him continue on for a touchdown.
Scott ignored him. He was used to that kind of look. No use letting it get under his skin.
Coach Dresso sent in four new replacements; he had no more. Pete Waner and Moose Gordon replaced Rick and Kear in the backfield.
Sid Seaver, Rick’s brother, and Ray Hunter replaced Scott and Roy Austin on the line. Scott didn’t mind. He was soaked with
sweat and bushed. He could use the rest.
The game resumed for two and a half more minutes before a whistle shrilled, ending the first half. The score remained 14–13
in the Royals’ favor.
“Well, we’re holding them,” Kear said, as he and Scott headed off the field together toward the red-brick building that housed
the locker rooms.
“So far, anyway,” Scott said a little dubiously. A one-point lead could go a long way in this football game. The Royals were
tough.
They filed in with the other Greyhawks and Royals players through the narrow pathway between the grandstand and the bleachers
to their respective locker rooms.
Scott and Kear removed their helmets and shoes and rested in a corner of the locker room. Sitting on the bare floor may not
have been as comfortable as sitting on a bench, but it felt cooler.
“Bill, a little more aggressiveness out of you, okay?” Coach Dresso said to the chunky guard as he launched into his intermission
speech to the team. “Sometimes I wonder if you’ve got steel nuggets for toes.”
The guys laughed. Bill Lowry smiled slightly. It was hard for Scott to tell how seriously Bill took criticism.
“Scott, nice tackling. Keep up the good work.”
“Yay, Scott,” Monk Robertson sneered, just loud enough for Scott to hear.
“Yeah,” Roy Austin chipped in.
Scott fumed a little as he pretended he didn’t hear them.
“Chuck, you’re holding your head too high,” the coach went on. “Keep it down.”
He said something else to the husky left guard, but Scott wasn’t listening anymore. His attention was on the looks and remarks
coming from some of the players.
Boy! Try to put in a one-hundred-and-ten percent effort, and they look at you as if you’re a hot dog!
He was glad when the fifteen-minute intermission was up.
Monk kicked off to start the second half. Glenn Patch, one of the Royals running backs, caught the ball on their twenty-nine
and galloped like a gazelle to the Greyhawks’ thirty-three, where Scott knocked him out of bounds.