My brother and I got a chance to visit a place that was on my "to-do" list before I die. This weekend we went and visited the Field of Dreams. For those of you that live in a cave or are too young to know, it is a famous inspirational sports movie. It was nominated for three Oscars. Kevin Costner starred in the movie and Ray Liotta and James Earl Jones were also in the movie. The field is in Dyersville, Iowa. My brother did not even know there was such a place. He just assumed it was a movie set or something like that.
It was a perfect day and I kept replaying scenes of the movie in my head as I looked at the field, and the the house, from different angles. All the characters were still fresh in my mind as if I was in the movie with them. Ray Kinsella, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Terence Mann, "Moonlight" Graham, and John Kinsella were all with me Saturday. I don't think the sound, and smell, of field corn on a summer day will ever mean the same to me. My brother and I both commented on the sound of the corn rustling in the breeze out in the outfield. The sound, though kind of ominous, was almost enough to make you think a story like this could be possible.
I have always loved baseball and visiting this field solidified my love of the game. The movie is all about second chances. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and the the other White Sox players that were banned from the game , get another chance to play baseball on this field. Ray Kinsella gets a chance to play catch with his father, and Terence Mann gets to write about the adventure of a lifetime.
Yes, they built it and we came. Was it heaven? No, but about as close as you are going to get here on earth, for a kid at heart, remembering the game he loves.
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“They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack.” Was it $20 to go onto the field like the movie said?
Terence Mann had it right, his passionate speech to Ray was on the money. It’s the best baseball line ever besides what Crash believes in. You know that baseball was there for us during the good times and the bad times. The constant was our love for the game (another good movie). However, Mr. C seemed to favor basketball, but I always knew he would come back to baseball in the long run. Just a few classics I’m sure Mr. C will remember, the “Eddie Backwards Helmet Rally in the Rain” in Mason City to preserve the undefeated season and to win the championship. The simultaneous grrr when we both dove for the ball missed it by inches trying to preserve Moby’s no hitter on that extremely rare occasion when I played 3rd base and didn’t catch. The time when I dared you to drop Harry (real conversation censored) rather than let him hit another homer off you and you struck the little guy out on three pitches! Taking batting practice during History Class because we could! Winners or Champions campaign to capture the Lincoln Land Conference. The fun we had volunteering to coach T-ball before we went off to college. The coining of Ironman by Mr. C!
These formed some of the basis for my speeches to my players. On one occasion my team in Amarillo was down by 21 runs in the last inning. It started to sprinkle when we came to bat in the bottom of the last inning. The situation reminded me of the Eddie Rally! I quickly huddled the team together and told them the Eddie story, my oldest son looked at me and said we lost give it up Eddie was a dork to wear his helmet backwards. I lit a fire under him and told him to be a leader. He crushed the first legitimate over the fence home run that an 8 year old ever hit at the YMCA in Amarillo. He hit it over the center field fence and cleared it by a good 50 feet. It was a monster blast. On a side note, his bother was playing on the other side of the center field fence and tossed it back like the Bleacher Bums at a Cub’s game. Both were classic moments to begin with, but then something magical happened. My son who never showed team leadership came into the dug out and said you heard my dad, if San Jose could do it we can! The team started chanting Eddie, Eddie, Eddie… There wasn’t an Eddie for miles. Manny then hits a triple right behind him off the top rung of the fence and all the sudden there was a wild fire sweeping the Texas Panhandle. We scored 22 runs in one inning and topped the Eddie rally all in the rain and won with a suicide squeeze. I think that was the first suicide squeeze that Amarillo has seen for that age group. It was a magical night on so many levels. There isn’t a time that a team that I have been coaching or playing on that has lost when the rain started to fall. This is only one of almost 10,000 magical days I have had related to baseball.
Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that every baseball fields is a field of dreams! Tell Mike I said Hey!
Ironman,
Believe it or not, it was FREE! You got to play on the field too!
I remember all those times that you brought up, and more! We had some great times and I will never forget them.
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