After winning the Catholic high school championship a phenomenal left-handed pitcher is signed by his home town New York Yankees. Called up to Spring Training a foolish comment to Yankees owner Colonel Rupert returns him to the minors. Late in the season he is brought up to the team and irreparably hurts his arm in a game in Cleveland. After trying to make an unsuccessful come-back he is released by the team, only to return to the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen at the height of the Great Depression. There he is stung in a poker game by none other than the notorious Dutch Schultz. Owning "the Dutchman" more money than he could ever repay he is forced into luring three current Yankee pitchers into another poker game where they are similarly stung. Through them the Dutchman tries to rig the 1932 championship the way Arnold Rothstein did fix the 1919 "Black Sox" World Series. A tale in which the famous men of the time – gangsters Dutch Shultz and Bo Weinberg, sports legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, are brought to life in a story of survival in the hardest of hard times as Johnny Shaw tries to hold on to the love of a beautiful young widow as a dark secret lingers over them.
