Two sportswriters investigate why a promising young ballplayer threw only one pitch for the New York Yankees a half a century earlier and then mysteriously dropped out of baseball, eventually becoming a homeless alcoholic.

A promising young ballplayer threw only one pitch for the New York Yankees a half century ago and then, a month later, mysteriously dropped out of baseball. His life quickly spiraled down into homelessness, alcoholism and despair. After the player dies in his seventies, a young sportswriter who read the obituary asks a retired sportswriter who was a boyhood friend of the player to help him find out why his life turned into such a haunting tragedy. But it soon becomes evident there's a dark secret at the heart of the mystery - one the older writer intends to keep secret.