I apologize, for I digress.

There is a theme within the work of Kevin Costner. To define it, I have been on a bit of an academic chase through the catacombs of my own mind.
I thought the amazing film "for love of the game" showed us a brilliant insight into the solution of the challenge I seek to solve. It gave us a glimpse of the everyman vs. legend dicotomy that Kevin portrays time after time.
While Kevin's character, Billy Chapel (RHP, Detroit), is pitching his final inning against the Yankees, the announcer narrates the epic struggle for us. He notes that Chapel is not pitching against the Yankees. Rather, he is pitching against Time. It is the final game of Chapel's career. "He can used that tired old arm one last time. To push the sun back into the sky and give us one more day of summer." The announcer has latched onto this timeless theme! Billy Chapel is facing an immortal enemy in the passage of Time. The announcer has divorced the character of his incidental traits (pitcher, Tiger, man), and declared that he is now an agent of Apollonian status. Like a god of the Greeks, it is his proffession, much less ABILITY!, to hoist the sun, and push it back into the sky and give ALL OF US one last joyous day of the recently-departed summer! Meanwhile, Kevin Costner as Chapel mutters to his god. He apologizes for breaking a promise that he would never ask his god to get involved in a baseball game ("it always seemed silly,"). But he breaks the promise to his god for this simple request: "if you could just make this pain in my shoulder go away for ten minutes..." As you can see, Billy Chapel the legend is on the verge of a monumental accomplishment. Billy Chapel (as portrayed by K-Cos) the individual is just a dude. I think to ourselves, we are all just dudes. Not ace pitchers, future hall-of-famers, the stuff of Grecian myth. Kevin Costner has made the brave decision, both in his life and in his career, to stand on the brink, that frightening space shared by immortality and the mundane, and we are all the better for it.