As I write this, I’m staring at my copy of ‘The Iowa Baseball Confederacy,’ written by W.P. Kinsella in 1986. You might be more familiar with his other novel – ‘Shoeless Joe’ from 1982 – which was inspiration for the film released seven years later: Field of Dreams. Tonight, Major League Baseball plays a game on a new ballpark built adjacent to the historic field.
Perhaps you recall Kevin Costner’s main character, Ray Kinsella, and his unending devotion to following the voices arising out of his cornfield: “If you build it, he will come” and “Go the distance” and “Ease his pain.”
Perhaps you remember his pursuit of the elusive writer Terrence Mann – played by James Earl Jones – and the scene beneath the Fenway Park stands where Ray says “What do you want?” and Mann rants about “I want them to stop looking to me for answers” and several other frustrations before realizing Ray is asking about food from the concession stand.
Perhaps you remember the ‘ghosts’ of Shoeless Joe Jackson and teammates on the Black Sox walking through the outfield corn wall and playing, 70 years after their scandal shook the sports world.
Perhaps you remember Mann’s speech: “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
Perhaps you remember the ending, when Ray’s young-again father asks, “Is this heaven?” and Ray answers, “It’s Iowa,” then says, “Dad, you want to have a catch?”
What I remember is walking out of the theater and not saying anything the next 15 minutes in the car. For on that hot summer day Field of Dreams became the only movie I ever saw with my father.
