Walter Innis, son of a frustrated and violent fallen baseball star and a tragically unhappy woman driven to infidelity, carries his family's legacy of torment into his own adult life - with disastrous results. Unable to let go of a childhood trapped between his father's violence and his mother's secret love affair, Walter has lost his own wife and job. When local hotshot and former employee of his mother, Henry Truxton III, announces his race for senate, Innis hatches a scheme to vindicate his mother's mysterious death and his father's valueless life. If it works, he might just get rich in the bargain. In the meantime, Innis takes a job coaching a hopeless Little League team, where his father's lessons for "the elements of hitting" come in handy. Ultimately, it is as a Little League coach that Walter discovers a route to happiness and hope beyond the reach of the past. Read Less