Scooter Riley-named after Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto-is just a regular kid growing up in the Bronx, right near Yankee Stadium, in 1969. His father, Patrick Riley, is a New York City cop. His grandfather, a fireman for thirty years, is a man who firmly believes that all of life's great lessons are explained in baseball lore. In the wake of the assassinations of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, as the neighborhood changes around him, Scooter is forced to see that life, like baseball, is a game in which a few extraordinary moments-moments of either courage or cowardice-will define the man he becomes.