To pay off his debts, Ed Wuncler, Sr. bets everything he owns, including the town of Woodcrest, against a Chinese businessman, Mr. Long-dou, on a kickball game between their two teams at the Woodcrest Kickball Stadium . Wuncler persuades Granddad into trying to talk Huey (described as the Tiger Woods of kickball "before the wife-cheating thing") into playing the game. Initially refusing to play, after Huey meets Long-dou's granddaughter Ming Long-dou, captain of the Chinese team and a formidable kickball player herself, he agrees to play. When Wuncler's hand-picked team consisting of Dominican immigrants are deported and Blackwater mercenaries go on a mission to save POW's is disbanded, Wuncler puts Huey in charge of assembling a new team within two days.