Calico Joe

Joe Castle, from Calico Rock, Arkansas, took the baseball world by storm in 1973. He homered in his first three major league at bats for the Chicago Cubs. Two months later, he was still hitting more than .500. Then, in his next at bat after homering off Warren Tracey, a surly journeyman pitcher, Tracey drilled a fastball at Joe's head. The damage was severe. Joe's right eye socket was destroyed, and he never played again, retreating back to Calico Rock, far from the public eye. Tracey soon retired from the Mets and drifted into booze and a succession of ex-wives. Thirty years later, Tracey's estranged son, Paul, on learning of his father's impending death from cancer, tries to bring Warren Tracey and Joe Castle together.