A player to be maimed later

Blaze Stender, a retired pitching superstar, asks his old friend Lloyd Keaton to write his biography, hoping that the book will help ensure his election to baseball's Hall of Fame. When Stender goes missing following a boating accident, Keaton discovers that the facts of his old friend's life are at odds with his popular image, and that Stender was keeping some dark secrets, including blackmail payments that could be related to a mysterious death.