The Blue Collar Kid

CHAMPIONS The scoreboard high above the rafters brilliantly tells the story. The Chatham University Tigers have just finished winning the College World Series. Paul Richard Alan, the Tigers' coach, has just completed another very successful season. It will be his last. Paul takes one last look at his family standing in the bleachers, walks slowly from the dugout area, and fades into the night. EUREKA, CA About 296 miles north of San Francisco sits the quiet community of Eureka, California. Famous for some 800 Victorian homes, a zoo that features a chimpanzee named Bill born in 1946, and College of the Sequoias, Eureka offers a unique but limited range of activity for the locals. Little do the people know that the quiet and peaceful city in which they live is about to be put on the map big time! TEN YEARS LATER Now 45, Paul has not aged gracefully. He's gone from the epitome of success to the loneliness of failure. He is living in Eureka under the assumed name of Paul Ashland, working a blue collar job. Little does he know his life is about to take another turn. RAGMUFFINS When the team's manager quits, Paul steps in to coach. He enlists the help of a troubled neighborhood boy, once a superstar himself. If successful they'll play in Sacramento, where the daughter he abandoned years earlier will be.