The Bears, a ragtag San Fernando Valley youth baseball team, reconvene without their former coach and star pitcher (Note: no mention is ever made to the absence of Coach Morris Buttermaker or Amanda Whurlizer). A new, austere coach, Mr. Manning (Dolph Sweet), prepares the team for a big game to be played at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas; the winner will travel to Japan to play a Japanese team. Appalled by the team's lack of discipline, Manning fires catcher Mike Engelberg (Jeffery Louis Starr) before they take the field. The team's motorcycle-riding star, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), disrupts practice, leading the Bears to walk out and effectively ending Manning's tenure as coach.Three of the players, Engelberg, Ogilvie (Alfred Lutter), and Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) visit the home of teammate Timmy "The Big Looper" Lupus (Quinn Smith), who is laid up with a broken leg and will not be making the trip to Texas. Ogilvie points out that none of them will be going to Houston if they cannot find a competent coach and a decent pitcher.Later, Kelly finds a new pitcher, Carmen Ronzonni (Jimmy Baio), who has moved from the East Coast. Kelly rejoins the team and introduces the local park's elderly and senile groundskeeper, Lester Eastland (Fred Stuthman), claiming that the man is the Bears' new coach. The players trick their parents into thinking that Lester will accompany them to Houston, then depart without a chaperon in a possibly stolen van procured by Carmen Ronzonni and driven by 13-year-old Kelly.The team stops for the night at a motel where they pile into a double room. Kelly goes off to smoke cigarettes and pulls a photograph of a man from his pocket. When Kelly returns, Tanner is watching Knute Rockne-All American on television, just as Pat O'Brien delivers his "Win one for the Gipper" speech.The next day, the Bears reach New Mexico and a group of Native Americans kids challenge them to a game in a vacant lot. At first, pitcher Carmen cannot get the ball over the plate and then when he does, he cannot get the other team out, resulting in a disastrous loss.Arriving in Texas, the Bears spot the Astrodome and speculate that their opponents, the Toros, are dirt farmers. At a practice field, the Toros drill with military precision as the game's sponsor, Sy Orlansky (Clifton James), impatiently waits for the Bears to arrive. Morrie Slaytor (Pat Corley), the Toros' coach, instructs his assistant to see if the El Paso Falcons team is still available. Kelly sets the Bears up in a dirty hotel, but the police show up and inquire about the van parked out front. Plainclothes Officer Mackie (Lane Smith) wants to know who drove the van, who it belongs to, and who their chaperon is? Kelly says their coach is not there and leaves for a nearby plant, where he waits for the shift to end, and greets the man in his photograph, his divorced estranged father Mike Leak (William Devane). Kelly asks Mike to be the Bears' coach and he reluctantly agrees.At the hotel, Mike introduces himself to Mackie as 'Coach Leak'. Mackie says as long as the van checks out, everything is fine. On a practice field, the boys tell Mike that they do not need a coach, they just need an adult to go on the field with them, so Mike watches their inept play from the sidelines. When Carmen hits Tanner with a pitch, triggering a minor brawl, Mike takes the team for pizza and they read about themselves in the local newspaper.Sometime later, the Bears arrive at the field to find the El Paso Falcons are already there. Mike introduces himself to Sy, who mistakes the Falcons for the Bears, but Mike points out the real Bears. Sy challenges Slaytor over the confusion, telling him that he wants the team from the newspaper because they have a great story. After checking in at the Houston Hilton with expenses paid by Sy's company, the Bears head back to the practice field where Mike teaches the boys fundamentals and Ogilvie gets a detailed scouting report on the Toros from a local girl. Mike tells Carmen to stop impersonating major league pitchers and just throw like himself, which turns out to be pretty good. Mike confronts Kelly about his smoking and Kelly storms off. He bumps into some of the Toros and one of them repeatedly uses a gay slur to describe the Bears and their coach and a fight ensues, but Kelly is separated from his rival. Now angrier, Kelly runs away.Back at the hotel, the team cannot find Kelly, but watch themselves in a television news report. When Mike finds Kelly in a pool hall, his son is upset that Mike did not recognize him immediately at the plant. Mike left eight years earlier, when Kelly was five, after giving the boy a bicycle. Kelly tells Mike that he never rode the bike because he saw it as a bribe and never accepted the deal. Mike asks if Kelly would have looked him up if he had not needed a coach?On game day in the locker room, the team worries that Kelly will not return, but Tanner gives a "win one for the Big Looper" speech, and Kelly arrives at the last minute. Between games of the doubleheader, a scaled down field with shorter baselines is set up. The Toros quickly take a 5-0 lead, but due to a time limit an official calls the game after only two innings. Mike argues that they deserve to finish the game, as Tanner refuses to leave the field and is chased by two officials. A member of the Astros, Robert J. Watson, shouts "Let them play," and Mike and the Bears get the crowd to join in the chant. The officials reverse their decision and the game continues. The Bears chip away at the Toros' lead.With two out in the bottom of the fourth and the score at 5-2, Carmen steps to the plate and hits the ball to the fence for a bases-clearing double. He takes off for third, the Toros throw the ball away, and Carmen slides home safely as the Bears win, 6-5 and are going to Japan. Alone in the runway to the locker room after the game, Kelly tells Mike that he would have found him even if they did not need a coach.In the final scene back in California, Kelly stops by the ball field and gives Lester Eastland a silent nod of thanks.