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Chick starts baseball
Chick's father decides to get him started into baseball when Chick was in third grade. His father was big into baseball when he was young, so he decides Chick should follow in his footsteps. Playing baseball teaches Chick that he is a daddy's boy and would do anything his father told him to do even if it means putting down his mother. -
Posey finds out the truth
Chick's mom, Posey, is home and starts getting suspicious about her husband's stories of him being away at Collingswood for business every day. She called a babysitter and drove up to Collingswood herself, until she found his car sitting in the driveway of a strangers house. She starts crying immediately and walks up the steps to the house, looks through the window and sees her husband there eating dinner with a woman and their son at this strange house. -
Len leaves the family
One day, Chick wakes up on a Saturday morning and starts eating breakfast before his two baseball games scheduled for that day. His mother asks him when his games are and she said she will take him. He wonders why his dad can't take him like he always does, and all his mom says is "daddy's not here." Chick becomes a mamma's boy from that day on. -
Alone and okay
One day, Chick was playing catch with his friends when two nuns come out of the church parking lot across the street. They motion Chick over and hand him a platter of meat loaf and green beans that they said was for his family. He didn’t understand why he was receiving free food from them, but when he brought it home to his mom, she was furious. She smashed the meat loaf in the trash and told him they didn’t need handouts; that they were okay on their own and he should always remember that. -
Chick goes to college
Chick gets recruited from a college to play baseball for them. He never gave up playing baseball because every time he threw a ball, he saw his father. After eight years of never seeing his father, he shows up at his first college game (1968). When he saw his father that day everything in his body began to tremble. He knew he had to impress him after all these years, so the first pitch of his at bat, he smacked the ball over the left-field wall. -
Regrets and lies
The day before Chick’s mother dies, he is at her house for her birthday when he gets a call from his father saying there is an old timer’s game at the stadium the next day. This is the first time he had heard from his father since he quit baseball. His dad begged him to go, and Chick agreed, trying to make his dad proud one more time. He lied to his wife and mother saying he had to go to a business trip. After the game, he gets a call from his wife saying his mother had a heart attack and died. -
Chick's mother dies
Chick wasn't there when his mother died, but he should have been. He had lied and left his mother the night before to go to an old timer's baseball game that his father had forced him to go to. At the funeral, he broke down and cried and cried. Chick got really drunk that night and he felt something change. This symbolises the point in the story where Chick becomes distant from his family, and continues to drink heavily daily. -
Chick's attempt fails
As Chick is driving, he loses control and starts swerving. He misses his exit, gets angry, turns around, and starts driving on the other side of the road. Suddenly, a semi comes up over the hill and he is to delerious to get out of the way and he doesn't care. He hits the semi straight on, but somehow finds a way to open the door and fly out the door. This saves his life. Even though Chick wanted to kill himself, his instincts told him to open the door which saved his life. -
Chick tries to end it all
Chick recieves a letter from his daughter that shows her wedding day. He immediately calls his ex-wife and screams at her that he wasn't invited and how could they do this without letting him know. He was supposed to be the one walking her down the aisle.. He felt lonelier than ever and like there was nothing left for him. He got drunk that night, decided to go back to his mother's town and started driving. -
Life Lessons
Posey and Chick go to “appointments” throughout the day together. Chick’s mom was a hair dresser and she goes to different people’s homes with Chick. All these people are about to die and Chick learns the importance of life from all of them They teach him that killing yourself isn’t the answer and people will always miss you, no matter what. -
Chick and Posey reunite
Chick sits at the dinner table, while his mother makes him breakfast. The whole time he is thinking that there must be something wrong, his mother is dead. She should not be able to make him pancakes anymore. They talk lightly, about how his job is doing and his family, but he keeps the worst parts to himself. Suddenly he says, "mom, how is this possible? Your..dead." She just shakes off his question and says there is no time for that now, they have to catch up. -
Midnight
Chick grabs the gun out of his glove compartment, grabs a few beers from the bac kseat, and slowly walks to his mothers house in Pepperville Beach where he finally decides to end it all. When Chick walks in the door, he sees his dead mother. Chick doesn't know if this is his mind playing tricks on him from the beer or if it is actually her. "M-m-mom?" he says. His mother answers him, takes his hand in hers and leads him to the dinner table. -
Chick dies
Chick Benetto died five years after his attempted suicide because of a sudden stroke that killed him instantly. His father attended his funeral, standing in the back of the church. In his final years, Chick reestablished a relationship with his daughter and made things right with his wife. He was finally content when he died.
