Every year, everything stops in Japan for a month as every house and office tunes in to watch the All-Japan Summer High School Baseball championship, an event that starts at the city level, proceeds to the prefectural championship, and then culminates in the national finals Hanshin Koshien stadium in Kobe, Japan. This year is completely different, however, because three players on the winning team out of the Okinawa prefectural tournament and one of the favorites are to make it to the championship is not composed fully of Japanese players. The Okinawa International High School has three players whose families live on Camp Foster, the US Marine base in Okinawa. The ace pitcher for the Okinawa International team is Kenny Williams, the son of an African American father and a Japanese mother. Kenny straddles two worlds, and fits neatly into neither. But Kenny has the heart of lion, and his team mates are flawless defensively throughout the tournament, shutting out every opponent leading to the final. The Okinawan team is a defensive juggernaut. National pride is on the line for both the Japanese side and for the marines on Camp Foster, and dark forces are at work behind the scenes to fix the outcome against the Okinawan contingent. As the final out seems certain, something very suspicious happens. The starting players on both teams disappear in front of 18,000 fans in attendance and 89 million television viewers. There are no witnesses. As Japanese authorities scramble for answers, the Okinawa Nine must come to terms with a fantastical new reality, and the world is counting on them to win....