By Michael Swanger

 

Score another hit for W.P. Kinsella’s ghost players. 

 

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, it has been reported, came up with the idea for MLB to host a regular season game at the Field of Dreams Movie Site in Dyersville while visiting it in 2016. But I would not be surprised if the same ghost who in the movie “Field of Dreams” told Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella “If you build it, he will come” had the commissioner’s ear.

 

Thursday’s highly anticipated MLB game between the home team Chicago White Sox and visiting New York Yankees in Dyersville promises to be heavenly, especially for those who follow baseball religiously and who revere the magic of the iconic 1989 movie that will forever tug at heart strings. The thought of a home run disappearing into the 159 acres of cornfields that surround the 8,000-seat stadium with its bullpens located behind a 12-foot wall that resembles old Comiskey Park is the stuff of dreams. The late author W.P. Kinsella, whose novel “Shoeless Joe” was the impetus for the movie “Field of Dreams,” and who earned a Master of Fine Arts in English at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978, likely could not have imagined it. 

 

It also will be historic as the eyes of the baseball nation will be tuned in to FOX to witness the first MLB game to be played in Iowa. The Sox-Yankees game was postponed a year ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the words of James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann, “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”

 

Thursday’s game will be a milestone in the history of the Hawkeye State, but baseball’s roots run deep here. From the “Pastime Base-Ball Club No. 2” formed in Davenport in 1858, to its burgeoning popularity following the American Civil War, to the first night game played under permanent lights in Des Moines in 1930, Iowans have played significant roles in the game’s development. Over the years, more than 220 Iowans have attained the ultimate goal of playing in the MLB with seven of them being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. What’s more, the game has dug itself into the fabric of our society thanks to the generations of Iowans who have played it at every level from Little League to the Big Leagues. 

 

No other place in Iowa captures the allure of baseball in Iowa quite like the Field of Dreams Movie Site. Visitors hold it and the movie close to their heart. Many have a story to tell about the movie, or their father, or their love of the game. 

 

Here’s mine, which was first published in Iowa History Journal’s 2014 Sept/Oct issue to commemorate the 25th anniversary of “Field of Dreams” in which I shared the story of my day spent with W.P. Kinsella … the man who made the movie, the site and Thursday’s game possible. 

 

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Go the distance

By Michael Swanger

 

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of “Field of Dreams.” The iconic movie has left an indelible imprint on our state as witnessed by the countless fans who have made the pilgrimage to the movie’s idyllic site in Dyersville and how its memorable lines like “Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa” and “If you build it, he will come” remain in our lexicon and our hearts.

 

Over the years, “Field of Dreams” has inspired games of catch between fathers and sons; reminded modern baseball fans of the game’s history and aesthetics; and moved grown men to tears when its protagonist, Ray Kinsella, asks his ghostly father, John Kinsella, “Hey, Dad, you wanna have a catch?”

 

None of that would have been possible were it not for W.P. Kinsella’s soulful 1982 novel, “Shoeless Joe,” which “Field of Dreams” is based upon.

 

I was reminded of that while playing catch with my son, John, at the movie site one picture-perfect Sunday in July. It’s beauty, like good art, is inspiring if you are willing to receive it.

 

 

 

That day, I met fans from as far away as Australia and Japan who shared their stories about the movie and novel. Here’s mine.

 

Shortly after I graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in English, I was afforded a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to chauffeur W.P. Kinsella from Cedar Falls to Iowa City. His books were reaching mass audiences thanks to the success of “Field of Dreams” and he was among a star-studded group of writers including Joyce Carol Oates, Tobias Wolff and Gay Talese who were participating in the International Conference of the Short Story in English sponsored by UNI and the University of Iowa.

 

No other writer, though, piqued my curiosity more than Kinsella. A well-worn, paperback copy of “Shoeless Joe” was a companion of mine in college and it led me to “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy,” “Box Socials,” “The Thrill of the Grass” and other books written by Kinsella.

 

So you can imagine my astonishment when the head of UNI’s English department asked me to drive Kinsella the following morning to Iowa City where he would speak at his alma mater.

 

“Just don’t talk too much about baseball,” she warned me, knowing that would be an exercise in futility.

 

When morning arrived and I pulled up in my early 1980s blue Nissan (similar to the one Ray Kinsella drove in “Shoeless Joe”) donning a replica wool 1917 White Sox cap (like the one Joe Jackson wore), Kinsella smiled and nodded approvingly.

 

There are no photos from my day with Kinsella, but it remains vivid in my mind.

 

Kinsella looked and was dressed like a modern day Mark Twain and didn’t talk much, at first. Jet-lagged, he took a cat nap while I drove in silence. When he awoke, he rubbed his eyes and apologized for snoozing. Instinctively, and jokingly, I did the same, which made him laugh, and the ice was broken.

 

I kept my promise to not talk about baseball until he brought up the subject somewhere near Cedar Rapids. He told me that he didn’t follow the game as much as people assumed that he did and that he was pleased with the way “Field of Dreams” treated his novel.

 

The irony of riding with an Iowan who adored baseball, writing and his novels wasn’t lost on Kinsella as he shared some encouraging words.

 

When we arrived in Iowa City, he invited me to lunch at Pearson’s Drug Store. We sat at its old-time counter and enjoyed sandwiches, malts and conversation.

 

As he exited the car, after I drove him to his destination, he asked me what was in the bag in the backseat.

 

“A few of your novels,” I answered.

 

Graciously, Kinsella offered to sign them, then thanked me for the ride and wished me luck. In my copy of “Shoeless Joe,” he inscribed the words “Go the distance.”

 

That’s good advice for anyone who has seen “Field of Dreams,” but hasn’t visited Dyersville, or played a game of catch of late, or read Kinsella’s novels.

 

(Michael Swanger is the owner and publisher of Iowa History Journal, now in its 13th year. A member of a multigenerational family of diehard Chicago White Sox fans, he cherishes memories of attending several White Sox games over the years with his family. Among them, stand out Game 2 of the 2005 World Series, the last three games at old Comiskey Park and two years of playing in Arizona at the Chicago Baseball Fantasy Camp, all with his father. He also treasures memories of his father coaching him in Little League and, in turn, of his years spent coaching his son in youth baseball.)