In 1957, a California low-level minor-league baseball team called the Steamers has a pitcher way beyond his prime, 41-year-old Roy Dean Bream, who reminisces about his brief "cup of coffee" in the Major Leagues and how the great Stan Musial once hit a grand slam home run against him.
New to the team is 17-year-old Tyron Debray, a fireballing pitcher Bream immediately takes under his wing. Because one is old, talkative and white and the other young, quiet and black, various tensions materialize on the team, many of them instigated by Randy Keever, a bad-tempered bully who is another of the team's pitchers.
Bream is keeping a secret as he goes through what is likely to be his final season, a heart condition for which he is taking medication. His dream is to see young Debray succeed and to get one last chance himself before giving up America's "national pastime," baseball, once and for all.
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a score of "C+", saying "The movie turns out to be the opposite of Bull Durham: Instead of undermining baseball clichés, it re-embraces them."[6] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle gave the film 1 star out of 5, but praised the acting.[4]