Critics were not kind to the Kevin Costner film "For Love Of The Game," and in many ways, they were right. Overall, this is not a great movie. But there's a scene near the end that is a moving portrayal of the ways that men have been wounded by the very patriarchy that has instilled in them a sense of entitlement and privilege, and of the hidden grief they carry as a result.

Costner plays "Billy Chapel," a Hall of Fame caliber major league baseball player at the end of his career, pitching on the last day of the season against the fabled New York Yankees in their legendary home, Yankee Stadium. The film moves back and forth between the present and the past, between play-by-play coverage of the game and the back story, the context, in which the game takes place. This back story shows how Chapel, a good-hearted but insulated bachelor, had entered into a relationship with a single mother, "Jane Aubrey" (played by Kelly Preston) and her teen daughter "Heather" (played by Jenna Malone).  

Over time, Chapel is opened by these relationships to dimensions of life that have nothing to do with baseball, which up to that point had been his first and only love. At a critical moment in the story, a vulnerable moment when Chapel is faced with an injury that threatens to end his career, he closes up, gets angry, and pushes Jane and Heather away. 

It is in this context that the present-day story unfolds: with each passing inning of the game, Chapel, knowing that Jane has left him and is on a plane to London to start a new life without him, is inching closer and closer to pitching a "perfect game," a feat so rare that in the history of baseball, which spans 135 years and more than 300,000 games, it has been done only 23 times.

The game ends with a dramatic, final play: Chapel completes the "perfecto." The crowd goes wild. The movie's play-by-play announcer (played by actual Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully), exclaims, as Chapel falls to his knees, "The Cathedral that is Yankee Stadium belongs to a Chapel!" Jubilant teammates rush onto the field to celebrate, then hoist Chapel onto their shoulders and carry him off the field in a triumphant procession. 

After the post-game celebration, Chapel returns, alone, to his luxury hotel suite, which is dark, engulfed in shadows from the outside street lights filtering in through the windows. He turns on the lamp on the night table next to his bed, reaches for the phone, and dials--he is hoping against hope that Jane has called...He hears through the phone a bright, chirpy, automated female voice say "Hello! You've reached the hotel message center. There are no new messages. Thank you for using the hotel message center!"  

Sitting on the right side of the bed, he hangs up the phone...hangs his head...and begins weeping...quietly at first...then falling forward, his head in his hands, crying out "Oh, God..." as the camera moves in close and you catch a glimpse of his tear-stained face...

"Billy" (Chapel's first name) should be on top of the world. He is rich, famous, good-looking, and has just reached the absolute pinnacle for his profession, an accomplishment that assures he will be remembered not just in the next day's sports pages, but in the annals of history.  

And yet he sits alone, weeping. He's gone from the heights of the pitcher's mound to the depths of his own emptiness, from the spotlights of the stadium to the shadows of his hotel room, from the roar the crowd to the silence of his own loneliness.  

The film's writer and director add one more scene--Billy and Jane (who skipped her flight to England when she saw, on a TV in the airport bar, Billy's unfolding perfect game) run into each other at the airport the next day, she catching her "make-up" flight, he on her way to pursue her in England...They profess their love for each other, and end the film in each others' embrace.  

It makes for "a happy ending"...but I've always thought it would have been more honest, more poignant, and more true-to-life, for the film to end with Chapel weeping in his hotel room, torn open by his grief, feeling uncertain, and aching for something more. In that moment, Chapel is on the verge of realizing that perfection isn't perfect, but imperfection, openness, vulnerability, grief, longing: these are often the portals into life's deeper, richer realms, if we can stay present to them.  

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1. "Bridge" (Jim Harrison)  
2. "Progress" (Julie Cadwallader-Staub)
3. "My Life Has Been One Great Big Joke" (Maya Angelou)

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