Minor league baseball.
It’s a world unto itself — one that is rarely seen for all its colour and tradition, and also its coarseness, vulgarity, and darker side.
It’s the summer of 2008, and Gord Mattis, a twenty-four year old left-handed pitcher, is plying his trade in Single A baseball. He eats, sleeps, and breathes the game. From a young age, Gord has had a love affair with baseball, although it hasn’t always loved him back.
Not blessed with overwhelming stuff, Gord has faced adversity at every level of organized baseball. He must go to extreme lengths to squeeze every last ounce of talent out of his body and mind to succeed on the hill.
Gord and his teammates -- including Danny Johnson, a brash, cocky, eighteen-year-old fireballer from Oklahoma City -- endure weary, soul-sapping bus trips across the state of Florida. They try to maintain their sanity in the pressure cooker that is life in the minors with sophomoric antics typical of twenty-something players with too much time on their hands.
Travelling from past to present, Gord reflects on his early years in the game, to college and independent league baseball, and currently in the minors, where the ultimate destination of the big leagues is achingly within reach.