One of my favorite movies of all time is Field of Dreams. Being a kid and a baseball fan, it was easy to love the movie as soon as I saw the preview. I remember watching the movie dozens of times as a kid, and still to this day when it comes on TV, I can’t seem to get myself to change the channel away from it.
Seeing it for sale again makes me miss those days without a care in the world other than to get done with school and play catch with my brothers. Hard to believe it’s been over twenty years.
When the movie came out in 1989 I was living in Roseburg, Oregon, one of the furthest places from any type of Major League Baseball, or so it seemed at least. There has always been something special about this era of my life. Even in the things that bring me joy in the tinyest of ways seem to have roots in this time of my life. Aside from the catalog of great quotes from the movie there was much more to baseball inthis time of my life…
One thing I can remember vividly is playing baseball in the yard with my brothers, trying to get some play time in before game 3 of the 1989 World Series, where my grandparents would be that night, high up in section 53 of Candlestick Park. I must have ran in the house half a dozen times to see if the game had started. Then finally I looked at the clock and realized that the game was supposed to have started. Commercials, every time. Finally I realized that there had to be a reason all I seemed to see was commercials.
I couldn’t believe what I saw, police and firemen all over the infield, and the stands mostly empty. My stomach sank. I remember trying to call my Dad in Sacramento, trying to find out if my grandparents were safe. After a couple hours of watching the chaos unfold on TV, finally we heard from them, they were safe and had gotten out of the stadium, and the city with only some concrete from Candlestick as a reminder.
Back to the subject of The Field of Dreams. It obviously sparks some memories for me.
I have never had the chance to visit, but I hope that the future owners keep things the same for those of us that still believe that if you build it they will come.
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America is ruled by it like an army of steamrollers. It has 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 that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.
via luxist