As a young boy growing up on a Nebraska farm in the 1910s, Roy Hobbs learns to play baseball from his father with whom he plays catch regularly. One afternoon, the elder Hobbs collapses underneath a mighty oak tree in front of their house and dies from a heart attack. Shortly thereafter, lightning strikes the oak tree during a thunderstorm, and splits the trunk down the middle. Hobbs takes a piece of the tree and carves it down into a baseball bat, using a wood burning kit to write the name “Wonderboy” into the barrel.