"Is this Heaven," asks a former Chicago White Sox baseball player of Ray Kinsella (played by actor Kevin Costner) in the movie “Field of Dreams.”
“No,” says Kinsella, “it’s Iowa!” But it sure appeared to be a heaven-like ballpark created by Major League Baseball in cooperation with Fox Sports and their corporate sponsors.
The field constructed in Dyersville, Iowa for this game surely gave one the feeling you were part of a heavenly place. It certainly did me!
Although this movie is now 23 years old, I have seen it many times. Following this real-life game played on Aug. 12 between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox in Dyersville, many have taken to Twitter and other forms of media saying how it related to them in real life. It certainly did me. I have always loved sports movies that relate to life experiences. ‘42: The Jackie Robinson Story‘ is like that.
As a kid growing up in the little town of San Gabriel, my “dream” was to play professional baseball for the Yankees. If you saw the game described here, it is obvious why I watched every pitch. As Ray Kinsella said, “Imaginations are infinite” and mine was. The Yankees lost that game 9-8 but took it to the bottom of the ninth when Chicago’s Tim Anderson’s 2-run homer into the cornfields outdid the Yankees three homers. My baseball playing was confined to school days.
As a youth in our front yard, I would practice pitching, throwing to my dad 60 feet away. Dad had played one year of professional baseball, so I knew I had a good mentor. I wasn’t surprised when he could catch my fastball from 60 feet barehanded. I also learned at age 12-13, if he could handle my best pitch barehanded, the Yankees would not be knocking on my door with a huge contract. When I heard Kinsella say, “If you build it, he will come,” he was hoping that his father, John, would show up on that diamond he built in his cornfield, and John did. My dad came to mind immediately.
In the movie when John agreed to “have a catch” with Ray you might have imagined the tear that was streaming down my face. Many similar stories can be found in that message.
Will you create and maintain the positive dream that Ray Kinsella had?
