It's Fenway Park, mid-September 1941. A man and his son, Bobby, are leaving a Boston Red Sox game, when someone asks, "What did Ted have?" While Bobby goes back to retrieve the scorecard, his father is fatally shot.

Three years later, by a twist of fate, Bobby and the killer end up in the same unit as soldiers preparing to go overseas to fight in WWII. The two men form a friendship that carries them through the waning days of the war. Back home, they both settle in the famously provincial section of Boston known as "Southie".

But a homicide is not their only bond. They both have fallen in love with same woman . . .