Young Buckeye Bradley's father never came home from the Normandy beachhead. His only memory is the fading photograph of an Army captain in the bright Georgia sun and this image serves as his silent guide through his not so straight and narrow adolescence as he and his pals swim through the Jersey Shore fifties nostalgia of cars, music, television and mores of the times under the watchful eyes of the bookie 'Uncle' Vito and Aces, self-described as the sharpest card in the deck and unparalleled dart shooter, in the back of Vito's Victory Sub Shop. Will Buckeye and his friends survive stealing boats, riding the tops of trolley cars, leaping from bridges and a live fire police chase along with the tragedies of adult desperation and suicides and their own fear of growing up? Survive to do what? Then suddenly, Angel appears, the summer babysitter who, to Buckeye, is as pure and perfect as a brand new major league hardball with tight red stitches. Buckeye's dreams about baseball becomes lost after his first real kiss. That's Downbeach.