After toiling in the minor leagues and in semi-pro Japanese baseball for ten years, Willie Cotter has finally found the end of his rope: sleeping on his ex's floor, selling loose pills to college kids, and working a dead end custodial job at his hometown park. When he befriends Murph, a young pitcher in a local summer league who has "The Goods," it becomes his mission to take the prodigy under his wing. But Murph has no intention of going pro, and Willie has no intention of allowing him to waste his talent, and both are pushed to their limits in the struggle for control.