BY BILL KRASOWSKY

“If you build it, he will come,” Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears out of nowhere while tending his corn.  Thus begins the story line of my favorite baseball movie – no, my favorite movie of any kind, Field of Dreams.  Sure, it is a baseball movie but it is more a movie about perseverance, pursuing one’s dream regardless of the odds, and second chances.  It is those latter qualities that earned the motion picture an Academy Award Nomination for “Best Picture” in 1989.

The movie is based on W.P.Kinsella’s novel, Shoeless Joe.  The Universal Studios’ release features Kevin Costner in the lead role of Ray Kinsella.  James Earl Jones is featured as writer Terrance Mann, a Salinger-like recluse.  Burt Lancaster plays the role of the elderly Dr. Archibald Graham who, in his youth, had the briefest of flings with Major League Baseball.  Ray Liotta plays the role of Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Field of Dreams opens with a monologue from Costner’s character describing his estranged father as an older man who was a former ballplayer.  John Kinsella pushed his son Ray to play the game, too.  In the rebellious times of the ‘60’s, instead he pushed him out the door.

Ray landed in Iowa where he took up farming with his wife Annie, played in the film by Amy Madigan, and their daughter Karin.  Times are tough and the Kinsella’s are depending on a good crop to pull them out of debt.  Developers want their farm and have bought their mortgage.  It is with this background that Ray is tending his corn when he first hears the voice.

When the voice persists, Ray tells his wife.  With a bit of skepticism she wonders along with him what the voice might be talking about.  Then, in the middle of a sleepless night,  Ray glances out the bedroom window and sees a vision of a baseball diamond, complete with lights.  When Ray tells Amy that he wants to mow down one of the corn fields to put in a baseball field she points out the financial ramifications.  Still, Ray wins out and the field is built.  He becomes a laughing-stock.

One evening Ray is looking out at his former corn field and sees a ballplayer in a vintage Chicago White Sox uniform surveying the diamond.  Shoeless Joe Jackson, or rather the ghost of Shoeless Joe, had come to Iowa.  Soon, the spirits of Jackson’s teammates who conspired to throw the 1919 World Series, the infamous Eight Men Out, are practicing with him.  Before you know it, every evening full teams of competitors are playing games that only the Kinsella family can see.

While watching one of these games, the voice speaks to Ray again and, as a result, he is off to Boston.  Somehow he just knows that he is supposed to bring recluse writer Terrence Mann to Fenway Park to see a Red Sox game.  Mann’s anti-establishment writings of the 60’s were a big influence on a young Ray Kinsella.  It was after reading one of Mann’s books that Ray left home.

While at the ballgame, Ray and ‘Terry’ both see something on the scoreboard that no one else can see.  While hearing the voice again, an entry from the Baseball Registry reads, “Moonlight Graham”, along with some biographical information and a stat line showing that he appeared in one game without an at bat, flashed briefly on the Fenway scoreboard.  As a result, Ray and Terry take off for Chisholm, Minnesota, Graham’s home town.

While in Chisolm they learn that “Doc Graham” had passed away a number of years earlier.  They spend the day listening to folks tell stories about the good doctor.  Later that night Terry tells Ray that Doc Graham’s story had so inspired him that he was going tell it to everybody, though he had not written anything for quite some time.

Before retiring for the night, Ray goes for a walk and suddenly realizes that it is 1972 where he meets an elderly Doc Graham.  Ray has an opportunity to talk with Graham and finds out he gave up baseball after that brief appearance to pursue a medical career.  He went on to tell Ray that he always wondered if he could hit big league pitching.  Ray told Graham that he thought he might still have an opportunity and invites him to come to Iowa with them.  Graham declines.

On the road back to Iowa, Ray and Terry pick up a young hitchhiker who introduced himself as Archie Graham and told them he was looking for a baseball game.  Upon their evening arrival home, Archie is summoned onto the field by Jackson to play and does so excitedly.  The next afternoon, Archie has his opportunity to face a big league pitcher and hits a long sacrifice fly.

The movie’s dramatization of Graham’s decision to choose a medical career over baseball was illustrated in a scene where Graham left the Field of Dreams to save Karin who was choking on a hot dog knowing that, when he did, he could not return to the game.  Who can forget that dramatic scene when we see the flannel pants leg and spikes of young Archie’s uniform transform into the pants and shoes of business attire as Doc Graham crosses the foul line with his medical bag in hand to save the girl.  As he’s crossing, Shoeless Joe Jackson calls out to Graham, “Hey kid … you were good!”

As the players are packing up their equipment that night, Jackson tells Ray, “If you build it, he will come,” while he points to the catcher.  Ray looks toward the backstop and suddenly realizes that the catcher is the youthful spirit of his father from his playing days.  After talking to his father for a few moments, Ray tearfully asks him, “Hey, Dad, wanna have a catch?”

The film ends with father and son tossing the ball around, while a procession of cars as far as the eye can see is making its way to the “Field of Dreams.”

That "magical" field in Dyersville, Iowa, still draws thousands of baseball fans each year.   Don and Becky Lansing, owners of the farm that Universal Studios chose as the setting for the film, have kept the property exactly as it was when the film was shot there. Anyone can visit that hallowed diamond in the middle of a cornfield to have a catch, hit a few balls, or just sit in the bleachers.  The Lansings do not charge admission.

The real Archie Graham, upon whom W.P.Kinsella's character is based, played in one game for the 1905 New York Giants as a defensive replacement in right field.  He never got a major league at bat.  He was a career minor leaguer who spent the 1905 season with the Binghamton Bingoes and the Scranton Minors of the New York State League before being called up to the Giants.  Graham played three more seasons for Scranton after his cup of coffee in the majors.  He hit .281 over his six year Class ‘B’ career.  He gave up baseball after the 1908 season to pursue a medical career and went on to spend more than fifty years as a general practitioner in Chisholm, Minnesota.

Until next week…(Editor's Note: Bill and Karen Krasowsky's Conklin, NY, home was hit hard by the 2011 flooding after Tropical Storm Lee. He is hard at work trying to rebuild and will return when life's responsibilities are not so pressing. In the meantime, we will them well and await his return to "Talkin' Baseball."