The first volume of the Region Rats trilogy, Mister Joe's Pirates, takes place in the Northwest Indiana of the late 1980s, a time and a place where the best future a kid could hope to achieve was becoming a ninja or an alcoholic. When the coach of the Pirate's little league team gets himself burnt to a cinder in a warehouse fire, Mister Joe's premiere barstool habituate, Vic Lukasic, volunteers to manage the team when he discovers many of his mortal enemies coach other teams in the league. For the remaining five games of the season, Vic, his brother, Pete, and a cadre of the last adults you'd want influencing your preteens, quickly discover the Pirates are perfectly capable of leading themselves astray.
