It is the Little League championship game, and the Wildcats are playing the Ravens. Jack serves as the home-plate umpire for the game. He privately roots for the Ravens because he dislikes the Wildcat's coach, Carl DiSalvo, whose life is happy and perfect. Jack greets Tim, the first-base umpire. Carl jogs over to them and asks Jack to be sure to call strikes correctly — he thinks that Jack has made some questionable calls in the past. Ray, the Raven's coach, comes over to say hello, and Mikey, a young man in his early twenties, follows them all with his video camera. The game will be shown on cable the following week. Lori Chang is the Raven's pitcher, one of three girls in the league and a very good player. As Lori strikes out Carl's players, Carl yells at Jack that Lori is throwing at his player's heads. Jack makes a show of jogging out to talk to Lori, but he only tells her to keep doing what she's doing. Lori's father, Happy Chang, is in attendance. He watches his daughter pitch with a stony face from the opposing team's bleachers. Jack has never understood his own son, Jason, who is artistic and dreamy. When Jason told Jack he was going to prom with a boy, Jack slapped him across the face, and then, when Jason tried to hit him back, Jack punched him hard. Jack's wife Jeanie took Jason and their daughters away from Jack and demanded a divorce. In the fifth inning, Lori pitches a fastball right at one of the opposing player's legs. Carl is irate, but Jack insists Lori didn't do it on purpose. When the Wildcats come up to bat, Ricky DiSalvo, Carl's son, pitches for them. Lori steps up to bat, and after a couple of poor pitches, Ricky nails Lori in the head. Lori falls to the ground and doesn't move. Ricky screams to Carl that he shouldn't have told him to throw the beanball pitch, and Happy Chang runs from the bleachers and begins to pummel Carl. Two policemen run onto the field and pull Happy Chang towards their patrol car. Lori wakes up. She is dazed but feels alright. She pitches for the Ravens in the next inning, and soon the game has come down to a single pitch — full count, bases loaded, two outs. Lori pitches, but Jack doesn't call it. He is unsure of whether it was a ball or a strike. He didn't see it, he says, and he stands and leaves, climbing over the ballpark fence. Jack had told his family to watch the game, had thought that it would show them that he had changed — a man admitting to his failure — but on TV, Jack just looks confused and apologetic, running away from the latest mess he's created.