Just in time for the Oscars…..
I was working on a completely different article, but I was stopped in my tracks when I read a couple of recent pieces that commented on the 1989 classic "Field of Dreams", a movie that leaves very little room for middle ground. Most people have very visceral reactions to it, one way or the other. Many love it….others loathe it.
Craig Calcaterra at NBCSports.com posted a recent article stating how much he hated it. Joe Posnanski offered a different take shortly thereafter, saying he loved the way it made him feel, although he also expressed the opinion that the movie had many flaws.
I decided to offer my own thoughts on the movie. I unabashedly, unapologetically loved it. But maybe not for the reasons you may think (more on that later).
What caught my attention in many of the criticisms of the movie, though, are the supposed flaws that people reference. I thought I’d review some of those here even though I realize it’s probably a fruitless endeavor. I mean, either you love the film, or you don’t, and I probably won’t change anyone’s mind. How we feel about films tends to be a very personal, very gut reaction. Nevertheless, I wanted to address some of the criticisms that you often hear about the movie.
The Top Baseball Films of All Time
Before digging in, a quick review of popular "baseball" films might be in order.
It’s quite common to find "Field of Dreams" listed as one of the best baseball films ever. In fact, a couple of years ago, we held our own Bill James Online poll of the best baseball films ever. Everyone picked their top 10, and we scored it MVP-style. "Field of Dreams" topped the list.
Here were our results (note: we decided to exclude Ken Burns’ "Baseball", since it’s in an entirely different class of film):
Rank
|
Movie
|
1
|
Field of Dreams
|
2
|
Bull Durham
|
3-Tie
|
Eight Men Out
|
3-Tie
|
The Sandlot
|
5
|
A League of Their Own
|
6
|
The Natural
|
7
|
Moneyball
|
8
|
Major League
|
9
|
Bad News Bears (1976 Version)
|
10
|
Bang the Drum Slowly
|
And, in the interest of providing you with new, groundbreaking, never-before-seen information…..I was interested in compiling a consensus list of the top baseball films ever. I combined the Bill James Online results with 19 other lists I located on the Internet that provided at least a top 10 list. Sources of top 10 lists included Rotten Tomatoes, ESPN, Baseball America, Ranker.com, CBS, IMDB.com, and many others. I assigned 10 points for each 1st place result, 9 for each 2nd, and so on. Here are the results of that exercise:
Rank
|
Title
|
Points
|
1
|
Bull Durham
|
151
|
2
|
Field of Dreams
|
132
|
3
|
The Natural
|
111
|
4
|
A League of Their Own
|
90
|
5
|
The Bad News Bears (1976 Version)
|
85
|
6
|
Eight Men Out
|
83
|
7
|
Moneyball
|
79
|
8
|
The Sandlot
|
75
|
9
|
Major League
|
75
|
10
|
The Pride of the Yankees
|
61
|
Note that the consensus top 10 is mostly the same list as the Bill James Online list (9 of the 10 are common to both lists), although in a little different order, and with "The Pride of the Yankees" replacing "Bang the Drum Slowly".
The 2 popular Kevin Costner flicks occupied the top 2 slots, with "The Natural" a solid #3. Those would probably have to comprise 3 of the 4 "Mount Rushmore of Baseball Films" spots, but any of the next 6 has a reasonable argument for the 4th spot.
The next 5 on the consensus list, in case you’re interested, were:
· Bang the Drum Slowly
· Fever Pitch
· 42
· The Rookie
· *61
Others that were mentioned: "For Love of the Game", "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings", "Angels in the Outfield", "Sugar", "Mr. Baseball", "Little Big League", "Fear Strikes Out", and "Rookie of the Year".
"Bull Durham" appeared on 19 of the 20 lists, with "The Bad News Bears", "Field of Dreams", and "A League of Their Own" mentioned on 17.
"Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams" were each ranked #1 on 6 of the lists, with "The Natural" coming in #1 on 3. "The Bad News Bears", "A League of Their Own", "Moneyball", "Eight Men Out", and "The Sandlot" each earned 1 first-place finish.
There might be a bit of an "era" bias running through all of this. Most of the top ranked films were released within a relatively short period of time. "The Natural" was released in 1984, "Bull Durham" and "Eight Men Out" in 1988, "Field of Dreams and "Major League" in 1989, "A League of Their Own" in 1992, "The Sandlot" in 1993. Talk about a "Golden Era" of baseball movies. Among the top 10, "The Pride of the Yankees was the earliest release (1942), and Moneyball was the most recent (2011).
OK. So, that’s a quick review of what would be considered the top baseball films ever. The next question, though, is:
Is "Field of Dreams" Really a "Baseball" Film?
Clearly, "Field of Dreams" is a film whose message resonates with a great many people. Just as clearly, it’s not for everyone. It’s extremely "corny", and it ain’t just because of the cornfield…..
In my opinion, though, it is probably a little bit misclassified as a "baseball" movie, although I’m sure it will always be thought of that way. Sure, baseball runs through it and is central to the theme, but it’s not really about baseball in the way that most of the other movies are. It uses baseball as a device in a spiritual sense and in a symbolic way to remind us of simplicity and innocence. But there’s really not much actual baseball in it. The central theme of the movie is about getting second chances and realizing a sense of redemption.
It’s not a fictional drama, it’s not a dramatization of real events, it’s not a comedy. The genre it belongs in is fantasy. It belongs in the same class as films like "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Princess Bride", films like that. "Groundhog Day", which has been running so endlessly on cable this month (after all, it is February) that I feel like I’m experiencing my own personal Groundhog Day that I can’t seem to break out of, is another example of a fantasy film. Saying that "Field of Dreams" is a baseball film contains some truth to it, but I think it’s a little like saying that "The Wizard of Oz" is a witchcraft film.
Quick definition from filmsite.org:
Fantasy films, unlike science fiction films that base their content upon some degree of scientific truth, take the audience to netherworld, fairy-tale places where events are unlikely to occur in real life. Fantasy films often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, escapism, and the extraordinary.
The keys there are magic, myth, escapism, and events unlikely to happen in real life. Fantasy films have a different standard than other films. They have a great deal more freedom, more creative license. Fantasy films allow our minds to go out and play for a while, to roam free, unchained by the realities of our everyday lives. I think that’s an important thing to bear in mind when critiquing the film.
"Ghost" Busters
My first encounter with the anti-Field of Dreams crowd occurred shortly after it came out. I had just seen the movie and asked a co-worker what she thought of it. She said "That’s the movie with the ghosts, right? Well, I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t very believable"
I didn’t know how to reply to her. Didn’t buy it? Didn’t buy what? It wasn’t believable? Come on….it’s a fantasy. It’s a fable. It’s not intended to be literal, and it’s not restricted by facts.
This reaction reminded me of a bit I saw once from comedian Tom Kenny (who you might be more familiar with as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, but who also used to do stand-up). Kenny tells of the time that he went to see "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in the theater with a date, and when they got to the scene where the kids are being chased on their bikes and E.T. magically empowers the bikes to fly, his date screamed out "Oh, come on!" and then sarcastically blurted out "Yeah…..right!" At which point he turns to her and says "Look, honey, it’s not a documentary!"
I feel the same way about Field of Dreams when people insist on enforcing too much reality on its shoulders. It’s a fantasy, a fairy tale. I give it a ton of leeway for that fact alone. They can have ghosts, and voices in the corn field, and old Moonlight Graham turning into young Moonlight Graham and then back to old Dr. Graham again after stepping off the field, and ballplayers fading into the corn, and messages that appear and disappear from the Fenway Park scoreboard, and a farmer deciding to plow under his land and convert it into a baseball field, and Ray Kinsella getting reunited with his father while his father reappears as an even younger man than Ray is, and none of it bothers me a bit. It’s a story. It doesn’t have to be believable. The rules of reality don’t apply. In fact, I prefer that they don’t. I got plenty of reality without it creeping into my movies, especially one like this.
Right is Left, Left is Right
One of the more frequent gripes you hear about "Field of Dreams", especially from fans intimate with baseball history, is the rather famous "error" of Ray Liotta’s portrayal of Shoeless Joe Jackson as a right-handed hitter and left-handed thrower, when in fact Jackson was the exact opposite (batted left, threw right). This drives many baseball fans absolutely nuts.
Not me.
To start with, "Field of Dreams" is neither a dramatization nor a biopic about Joe Jackson. If it were, I would have cared more about getting his "handedness" correct. But it’s neither of those types of films. As an allegorical story, the accuracy of how Jackson batted or threw is irrelevant. The story’s not really about Jackson, anyway. It’s only using Jackson as a device, as a symbol of one of many characters seeking a second chance.
It’s also not as if the film makers were just careless and unaware. They knew full well that Jackson batted lefty and threw righty. Ray Liotta, the actor who portrayed Jackson, tried for a while to pull it off, but he couldn’t do it convincingly. So, he went back to his natural way of hitting and throwing, and they made a decision to let that part be historically inaccurate. Plus, as Liotta himself pointed out when interviewed about Jackson batting the wrong way, "Well, he didn’t come down from heaven either!" Well said, Ray.
Much is also made of the fact that Liotta doesn’t look or sound much like Shoeless Joe, who was from South Carolina. Again, that didn’t bother me in the least. Liotta wasn’t trying to do an impression of him.
And, my feeling is…what did all of that really hurt? The film makers made an acting choice over a historical accuracy choice. In a film like this, that’s the more important variable. They liked what Liotta brought to the character. In my view, that was the proper decision. The historical details of Joe Jackson’s voice, looks, and handedness aren’t relevant to the story. Look, I’m as big a baseball historical nut as you’ll find. I’ve immersed myself in baseball’s history starting from a very early age. When I first saw the film, I was well aware how Jackson hit and threw in real life. I noticed it. But, I can honestly say it didn’t bother me in the least, and it didn’t detract from what the film was trying to do.
But, while we’re at it, why do we care so much about this particular historical inaccuracy? In 1988, a year before "Field of Dreams" was released, "Eight Men Out" hit the big screen. Now, "Eight Men Out", in contrast to "Field of Dreams", was about real events. It was a dramatization of those events, no doubt, but it was based the events in and around the 1919 Black Sox scandal. However, "Eight Men Out" had a lot of historical inaccuracies. Granted, they did have Jackson (played by D.B. Sweeney) batting left and throwing right, so they got that right, but they had Eddie Collins (Bill Irwin) batting right handed instead of left handed, and they also had one of the "clean Sox" pitchers, Dickey Kerr (Jace Alexander), pitching right handed instead of lefty. Again, it didn’t bother me….but why did "Eight Men Out" largely get off the hook for things like this while "Field of Dreams" was hammered for the Joe Jackson portrayal? If you’re going to hold one of the films to a higher standard, wouldn’t you hold the film that’s actually about real events more accountable?
While we’re on the topic….."Eight Men Out" had numerous other inaccuracies, including Kerr retelling a story to his manager (Kid Gleason) about how Kerr, in the first big league game he had ever seen, witnessed Gleason pitching a no-hitter against Cy Young, an event that never occurred, as Gleason never pitched a no-hitter. So, it was clearly made up for dramatic effect in the exchange between Kerr and Gleason, which is fine, but, again, why not slam the film for that error? In addition, there have been numerous other details that the film got wrong, ranging from various scores of the World Series games to inaccurate timelines regarding the trial, etc. But, no one seemed to care about those, and frankly, I don’t either, because in most cases, they’re not all that critical and don’t really detract from the essence of the film. They’re details, but to me, they’re not deal breakers. But, in these examples, why hold "Field of Dreams", a fantasy, to a higher standard than "Eight Men Out", which was based on real events?
The Absence of Negro Leaguers
I admit I’m a little conflicted on addressing this topic, because any time you comment on race, you run the risk that if you go too far one direction, you’ll be labeled as just being politically correct, and if you go too far in the other, you may be branded as racist. It can be tricky waters to navigate. Still, I thought I’d provide my thoughts.
By the way, a quick sidebar on words…..
I believe the term "racist", as happens to many words over time, is undergoing a transformation. And, no, I’m not even referring to current political usage of it, which has been getting a great deal of attention lately, including a recent article by Bill posted on this site. I’m talking about something a little closer to home.
See, my middle-school-aged kids use the term "racist", but in a different context. For example, we were at Chipotle the other day, and while instructing the "burrito artist" on what I wanted to include in my burrito, I selected the white rice rather than the brown rice. My daughter commented that that was "racist".
My kids throw the word around like that all the time. When I tried to explain to my daughter that it’s not really proper usage of the term, she explained that she uses it any time someone favors one thing over another. In other words, she’s eliminating a key element of discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, and instead is applying a simplified definition of merely showing favoritism towards one thing over another. I wonder if, eventually, that will be the more common application of the word?
I believe the term for this dynamic is "semantic shift". For example, I recently was at a restaurant and ordered a steak and asked the waiter which steak sauces they had, and he said they had Heinz 57 and A1. I chose A1, and the waiter replied "awesome!" Well, I’m sorry, but my choice of steak sauce was not "awesome". There was nothing impressive or earth-shattering about my selection. Nevertheless….over time, "awesome" now has very little to do with "awe" and has morphed into something more along the lines of "Great, thank you for selecting an option that I can actually fulfill".
OK…end of sidebar.
For well over 20 years after the release of the film, I don’t remember reading or hearing anything about this particular point, but I’ve heard it referenced more and more often lately about how the film didn’t include any Negro League players (or any African-American players at all, for that matter) in any of the scenes where the ghosts of deceased players returned to play on the Field of Dreams.
Back when we were having our top 10 baseball movie discussion in Reader Posts a couple of years ago, one well-intentioned but (in my view) misguided member observed that "Field of Dreams" made him very angry because it implied that such a wonderful place would only welcome white players, and that a "real" Field of Dreams should rightfully include players like Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and Oscar Charleston. He made a comment about "wouldn’t Josh Gibson like to take a few cuts against Eddie Cicotte?" He also made the point that the film had a "forum" to address the injustice of the Negro Leagues, and that they should have "made the most of that forum". I guess I never particularly thought of "Field of Dreams" as a "forum"….
Others have also pointed out that the absence of African-Americans in those scenes make them uncomfortable when viewing the movie, and that it was a real miss on the filmmakers’ part. Even the film’s director, Phil Alden Robinson, expressed regret after the fact that he didn’t include any African-Americans, and that he would include them if he had the chance again (ironic, I suppose, since the film is about second chances and regret…..)
While I certainly don’t want to imply that it would have been a bad decision for the film to include Negro League players, I really don’t think it would have helped either, and I think people that insist it was a big oversight generally miss the point of what the movie’s ultimately about. Here’s why….
See, the film is indeed about second chances. But, not just any second chances. It’s not about getting another chance to do something that you weren’t able to do before. It’s about getting second chances directly related to decisions that the characters themselves made, second chances related to regretful decisions or errors on their part.
Look at the main characters more closely, their background stories, and their connection to the Field of Dreams that offers them a second chance:
- Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) and his father John (Dwier Brown) – their relationship deteriorated over time due to their respective actions and behavior, and they never reconciled.
- Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) – an author who loved baseball and writing, but over time became cynical and reclusive.
- Moonlight Graham (Burt Lancaster as the old Graham, Frank Whaley as the young Graham) – A fringe ballplayer who only made one appearance in the Majors and never got a turn at bat, and then hung it up to become a doctor. He didn’t regret his choice, because he knew that being a doctor was his calling, but he always wondered about what it might have felt like had he stuck with baseball a little longer and had the chance to take a turn at bat.
- The 8 Black Sox players – Found guilty of throwing the 1919 World Series, banned from the Majors forever for their actions.
What do these characters all have in common? They all made choices that, to one degree or another, they regretted, because those decisions caused them to lose something they loved, whether it was a relationship, a passion, an opportunity, or a livelihood. The Field of Dreams is not simply some kind of Nirvana where all the dead players can regroup and play together in peace and harmony while re-living their glory years. It’s a place for second chances, most definitely…..but specifically it’s a place that provides second chances for those who have erred in the past, a chance to right a wrong of their own doing. A chance for redemption. A chance for absolution, if you will. A place of forgiveness.
So, if you look at it in that light, the plight of the Negro Leaguers doesn’t really fit into the theme. The Negro Leaguers didn’t make bad choices. They didn’t err in any way. There was no need for those players to seek redemption. They didn’t do anything wrong….they had a wrong done unto them by others by prohibiting them from playing in the Major Leagues. It was beyond their control. They’re already as innocent as children in this context. While I understand where people are coming from when they make the point that they should have been included, I feel it misses the point. To have included them just for inclusion’s sake would have been, in my opinion, gratuitous and served no purpose related to the movie’s theme.
Now, some of you who are especially sharp might be wondering "OK…but what about Mel Ott, Gil Hodges, and Smoky Joe Wood? Why are they there?" Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t have a good answer. I do think the film makers were inconsistent in that way. I don’t think there was any particularly good reason to identify those players other than for a brief bit of name dropping. They don’t fit the theme either, unless you take the position that they’re looking for a second chance because Smoky Joe regretted hurting his thumb while fielding a bunt, Ott regretted getting in a car accident and dying before he was 50, and Hodges regretted chain smoking and dying young from a heart attack, all of which I think would be real stretches. Apparently, they were dead and word got out that there was a magic field, and they showed up. If that were the case, if that’s all the film was about, to have a place where the dead could return and play, then they would have saved themselves a lot of grief by being more inclusive.
But, the theme was really about more than that. If it were simply about just a having a place where the ghosts of great ballplayers from the past could assemble and frolic, how come Christy Mathewson and Lou Gehrig and Honus Wagner and thousands of others weren’t there? Answer: they didn’t need to be there. It wasn’t a place for them. They didn’t need redemption. The Black Sox needed it. It should have been as simple as that.
Moonlight and Burt
"It was like coming this close to your dreams and then watching them brush past you like a stranger in a crowd. At the time, you don't think much of it. You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day."
- Moonlight Graham, "Field of Dreams"
Another common complaint I hear is that Burt Lancaster’s acting was over-the-top in his portrayal of the Moonlight Graham character. I honestly don’t know what in the world these people are talking about.
Lancaster’s time on the screen yielded some of the moments of the film for me. I think it was a terrific, poignant, memorable performance. Like many aspects of the film, you either loved it or you didn’t. And, I loved his moments on screen. I felt he played the role just right. I recently went back and re-watched his scenes to see if maybe I missed something. I didn’t. He was terrific.
By the way, I also love that his character’s wishes are to wink at a pitcher (to make him think you know something he doesn’t) and to hit a triple. Not a home run, but a triple, to circle the bases and to hug third base when you arrive. And when he gets his chance on the Field of Dreams, he finds out that winking at a pitcher will only result in a brushback pitch that knocks you on your ass. And, it was an excellent film decision to have him hit a sacrifice fly in his at-bat. Not a triple, like he had imagined…. a simple sac fly, just deep enough to get the run home. A very wise and effective choice they made there.
Terence Mann & The Speech
Another observation that you hear people make is the problem they have with Terence Mann’s (James Earl Jones) speech near the end of the movie. It’s one of the big moments in the movie, and a lot of people loved that speech. It’s probably worth looking at in its entirety for reference purposes, because it can show how people can interpret the same words in extremely different ways. (note, I removed the intermediate lines where the brother-in-law keeps imploring Ray (Costner) to "sign the papers"):
*****
Ray, people will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. "Of course, we won't mind if you have a look around," you'll say. "It's only twenty dollars per person." They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have and peace they lack.
And they'll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come, Ray.
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, is 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.
*****
Now, that’s a speech that "gets to" people in very different ways. To some, it’s a moving speech, one of the highlights of the film. To others, they wonder how the character of Terence Mann, an African-American author, one who was squarely in the middle of the civil rights fight, could make such a speech like this that "longs for the past". They see this speech as a call to return to the past, a time when African-Americans faced terrible prejudice, that Mann’s character could be interpreted as glorifying the era of the deceased ballplayers (which, in the case of the Black Sox players, would have been the 1910’s and 1920’s) in which baseball was segregated. They wonder, how could an African-American logically make that speech? In addition, they’re troubled by the money reference, inferring from the speech that they’ll take your 20 bucks to let you bask in the nostalgia, but if you’re poor and don’t have the cash….well, forget it, buddy.
Let me offer a different take. When someone waxes nostalgic about the past, it doesn’t mean that person wants to return to every aspect of that past. If I get nostalgic about the 1960’s, it’s likely because I’m remembering the music, or certain sporting events, or landing a man on the moon, or other things related to growing up. It doesn’t mean I’m hoping to return to an era that included Vietnam, the Manson family, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and the Kennedys. Nostalgia generally involves selective memories that made you happy. You may be nostalgic about specific events or people, or simply how something made you feel, perhaps just because, when you’re younger, things may have seemed simpler and, in many ways, better. Not necessarily everything about the past, but certain things. That doesn’t mean you want to see society regress. That doesn’t mean you wish to return completely to all of the realities of a prior era.
So, I really don’t see anything truly inconsistent about Mann’s character making a reference to "all that was once good, and could be again". He’s talking symbolically about how baseball itself made people feel, especially as children, even though that past contains ugly truths including segregation. Longing for positive memories from the past does not mean that you’re calling for a complete return to that era.
Look at the phrases and images: "innocent as children. "where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes". He’s expressing nostalgia in the form of how people felt when they were younger, when things were simpler, before you had to worry about making a living and paying the mortgage and all of the stresses with life, when you could just sit and watch the game without a care in the world. He’s not calling for society to return to its previous norms. He’s not saying that the past was all good, and he’s not even saying that baseball was free of its own shortcomings. He’s saying that the game itself, at its essence, reminds us of what was good, because of how it made us feel.
That’s the spirit of the speech, in my opinion. To impose some larger societal meaning beyond that is, I think, a true disservice in the context of the film. Everyone reacts differently, I suppose, but I see no inconsistency between Mann’s character and the delivering of this speech. It remains a highlight for so many fans of the movie.
By the way…..the sight of having Terence Mann sitting in the bleachers with "The Baseball Encyclopedia" open on his lap is perfect. A true analyst at heart, he was. Makes me wonder if he had a Baseball Abstract with him as well. The timing would have been about right….
Having a Catch / Dad
Perhaps the one scene that tends to be cited most often by people that love the film is the climactic "Hey, Dad, wanna have a catch?" scene between Ray and his father. Many a fan has admitted to blubbering upon watching that moment.
I’d have to say, though, that I’m not one of them. Oh, I understand why many react that way. I just didn’t have that kind of emotional connection to that part of it. See, as much as I love baseball, my dad simply didn’t. Now, we had a great relationship, and we loved each other. We just didn’t have a bond that included baseball.
My dad was a veteran of World War II. He was smart. He could fix just about anything, and loved disassembling things so he could better understand how they operated. The old joke about my dad was that if you asked him what time it was, he would explain to you how a clock worked.
But, baseball? He just wasn’t interested. He didn’t get it. It didn’t speak to him. Once, a friend asked him if he wanted to watch a ball game, and he replied "No thanks….I’ve already seen one". That’s literally how he felt. Where as you or I could find something unique in every baseball game we've seen, they all looked the same to him.
He would take me to ball games occasionally (as did my mom) to Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium, but he found it hard to sit and watch them. More often than not, he would head up to the top of the upper level and look out over the Ohio River and smoke his cigar. I really didn’t mind…..I was too much into the ball game and keeping score to let it bother me. Honestly, I was just always happy to be there and to watch the game.
But, playing catch with my dad? No, I really couldn’t identify with that. Funny how that works sometimes. Both of my grandfathers were baseball players and huge baseball fans. My father’s father always encouraged people that would immigrate from the "old country" to attend baseball games. He liked to say "if you’re going to be an American, you’re going to have to learn about baseball". He felt it was an important part of our national identity, that it represented teamwork at its best. I guess that attraction must have skipped a generation. Similarly, my son has never developed any real interest in baseball either. He’s much more into art and computers. I guess baseball either speaks to you, or it doesn’t.
So, I still think it’s a wonderful film. And I do think of my dad and remember him fondly when watching. I just don’t happen to tear up at that moment. It’s not a big emotional moment, and it’s not really a reason why I love the film.
Wrapping it Up
In the course of writing this, something else occurred to me that hadn’t before, a new way that I now relate to the film. In some ways, I have come to feel like a combination of 2 of the main characters in the film: Moonlight Graham and Terence Mann. It’s as though I’ve gotten a small taste of my own personal Field of Dreams.
A little background: In the early 1980’s, when I was college age, trying to decide what I wanted to do, I started reading Bill James and the Abstracts (which, by the way, would a great name for an alternative rock band). My mind was blown. I thought, "What a great way to make a living!" I had always enjoyed tinkering with information, playing tabletop games, compiling stats, looking through reference material, doing my little analyses, and it crossed my mind that that was exactly the type of work I would love doing. However, I lacked the confidence in my ability to pursue it. I wouldn’t have even known how to begin. Was it realistic? What if I failed? I ruled it out before I ever got started. So, I continued my more traditional educational path, while still remaining a loyal reader.
See, it strikes me that what Bill James created, much like Ray Kinsella creating the Field of Dreams itself, was totally illogical. It seemed unlikely that something like what he was doing could succeed. He was consistently told by publishers that there was no way that his work would appeal to a large audience. Yet, he defied all the odds. He self-published his early Abstracts. Success must have seemed unattainable at times. However, succeed he did, and the rest is history.
Much like Moonlight Graham, I chose a more conventional path, a safer path, but always wondered what might have happened had I stuck with my original passion. Much like Terence Mann, I spent many years doing other things besides writing, when writing and analysis was my true passion.
Since joining Bill James Online as an author, I have been afforded the chance to write on this site, unconstrained by restrictions on topic or content, unbelievably getting the opportunity to write in the same space as Bill James himself. When I stop to think about it, it strikes me as being very surreal. Ironically, very "dreamlike", if you will.
Much like Moonlight Graham, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything else. I have no complaints. I have a great family, a wife and kids that I love. I don’t have any true regrets. But, a couple of times a month, I do get the pleasure of diving into my original passion, sequestering myself away, doing my research, organizing my thoughts, publishing my work, and witnessing the reactions.
When I publish my articles, I know I don’t always hit a home run….sometimes I strike out, and sometimes, just like the young Moonlight Graham, I merely hit a sacrifice fly just deep enough to score the runner. And like Terence Mann, I have been provided with a second chance, in some small way, to follow a passion, to see what’s out there in the cornfield.
A second chance….isn’t that what the film’s really all about?
As always, thank you for reading.
Dan