Field of Dreams (1989)

Ghosts of Baseball’s Past

We’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! Even though some of us are still getting over a(nother) disappointing MLB playoffs¹, we’ve found other things to celebrate this month (aside from our birthdays): we’ve slid into a new home! So give us a high five as we round the bases on our first post from our new house: the baseball classic Field of Dreams, the residuals from which we assume partially paid for Horizon: An American Saga. So drop everything and listen to that little voice in your head that’s telling you to read on!

Daddy Issues: The Movie (Source)

Previews

What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?

Ellen: “If you build it, they will come.” Other than that, no thoughts, head empty.

Tyler: Yeah like you I know the quotes, plus some broad strokes of the plot (e.g., baseball, corn, etc.), but not much else. This is one of those purported “classic” sports movies that people are always surprised to hear I’ve never actually seen, so I’m eager to finally watch this (if only to stop disappointing people).

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Plots & Feelings

This one’s pretty self-explanatory.

Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella is inspired by a voice he can't ignore to pursue a dream he can hardly believe. Supported by his wife, Ray begins the quest by turning his ordinary cornfield into a place where dreams can come true.

Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):

• Via voiceover and old-timey photos, we learn about Ray Kinsella, and also baseball. He lives with his wife, Annie, and daughter, Karin, on their corn farm in Dyersville, Iowa. Troubled by his broken relationship with his late father John, a devoted baseball fan, Ray fears growing old without ever having done anything to achieve his dreams.

  • Tyler: I found this to be a pretty clever use of a prologue to introduce the main characters, backgrounds, and the major themes of the movie will be all within the first couple minutes. By the time the “action” starts you feel like you already know these people and their motivations.

  • Tyler: Also, since I have no better outlet for my random movie musings, 1980s-era Kevin Costner looks like Bradley Cooper mixed with Paul Walker.

• While in his cornfield one evening, he hears what he comes to call The Voice say, “If you build it, he will come.”² He hears this disembodied proclamation a few times, and is shockingly open with Annie about it. So open, in fact, that people at what I can only assume is a Tractor Supply Co. are asking Ray about it. He doggedly tries to ignore it, but eventually sees a vision of the old player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (who died in 1951) standing in a baseball diamond next to his farmhouse. Ray tells Annie that he’s never, ever done something spontaneous, and the idea of turning into his father is terrifying. With Annie’s befuddled blessing, Ray plows under his corn to build a baseball field.

  • Ellen: In the background of the farm store scene, Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” is playing, which is a hilarious choice.

What’d you say, punk?! (Source)

• In a timelapse of the construction, Ray explains the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, particularly the bits about Joe Jackson. Despite allegations that he was paid to throw the series along with seven other members of his team, he played like hell. And just like that, 16 minutes into the movie, we have our field! Thanks for coming, folks.

  • Ellen: All I’m hearing is that Shoeless Joe is a bad investment.

• I guess their plan was to build the field and just sit and wait while the seasons pass, because months go by with nothing happening. Though Annie remains supportive, she’s also getting concerned about their financial situation, given the double-play³ of losing profit and burning their savings on the field. Then, one night, a striped specter appears! It’s none other than Shoeless Joe Jackson. Ray talks with him, and they start playing a little ball⁴. Everything is extremely casual, and it’s not until Annie and Karin come out that anyone even asks if Joe is a ghost. He asks if the rest of the boys can come play, because they all miss it terribly since they were banned. Ray says they’re welcome back any time.

  • Tyler: I find it kind of odd that the movie glorifies players who were banned for ruining the literal integrity of the game. Shoeless Joe Jackson gets a hand-wavy “He was banned but he still hit .300 so you can’t prove he threw the game” comment, but there’s still something a little icky about also applying mythic status to players associated with such a scandal.

  • Ellen: As I learned from the Wikipedia article I linked, they were all found not guilty, so they’re at least legally clean. I guess part of the thesis of the movie is that baseball is so sacred, it’s a cosmic wrong to take it away from someone. But yeah, it’s weird!

  • Tyler: I know Shoeless Joe is the real focal point, but it seems like a real missed opportunity for the script to not mention this point to give them some sympathy! It takes away from the quote later on when Ray says that baseball “reminds us of what’s good.”

Out of the mouths of babes (Source)

• Annie’s brother Mark comes over to lecture her about the financial situation and offers to buy them out from the farm. The family is a little distracted, because the rest of the Black Sox have shown up, and it’s game time, baby! Mark, his wife, and Annie’s mother cannot see the players, so they leave in disgust. Meanwhile, The Voice returns! The new proclamation: “ease his pain.” The couple ponders what that could mean as they depart for a PTA meeting. At the meeting, Annie gets back to her 60s protesting roots by absolutely schooling a “Nazi cow” on the unconstitutionality and insanity of book bans (how relevant 🙃). The book in question was written by Terence Mann, and Ray is convinced that’s whose pain he must ease. When he and Annie both dream that Ray took Terence to a Red Sox game, that seals the deal. Ray’s off to Boston!

  • Ellen: It’s wild that Annie nearly draws the line at Ray driving to Boston, not at threatening their family’s livelihood by building a baseball field for ghosts.

  • Tyler: I took that as more of an impact of timing and the cumulative effect of his actions. Like “I’ve played along with this and let you build your field, but can we stop for real now before we’re bankrupt?” as opposed to “You had me with ghosts, but BOSTON?!”

The boys are back in town! (Source)

• Terence hates this idea! He’s become a recluse in recent years, he’s tired of everyone looking to him for answers and the world remaining messed up, and he has no idea how Ray even found him. After several increasingly whacky attempts to get Terence to come along, all it took was total dejection! Ray and Terence get hot dogs and beer (for seven dollars⁵), and take their seats. As the game progresses, Ray sees a flash on the scoreboard about somebody called Archie “Moonlight” Graham, who played for the Giants in 1922 but never got to bat. This very specific vision is accompanied by the cryptic Voice message “go the distance.” Ray brings Terence home, apologizes, and is about to leave when Terence reveals that he heard and saw it all. It’s off to Minnesota!

A man after my own heart (Source)

• Upon arriving in Chisholm, Minnesota, the pair learns that Graham was a beloved physician in the town, and he died a few years earlier. While Terence stays back at the hotel room to convince his father that he wasn’t kidnapped, Ray takes a stroll right back into 1972! He comes upon Graham, and they talk about how even though his dream was to bat in the major leagues and wink at the pitcher, the old man has no regrets, and he knows his true calling was to be a physician. He declines to go see the field. Ray and Terence plan to return to Iowa tomorrow, and Ray calls Annie to fill her in. Annie’s like, “Cool, love this plan, and no, my brother and guys in suits aren’t just offscreen trying to force me to sell the farm, nope, definitely not.”

• On the road to Iowa, Ray and Terence pick up a hitchhiker named Archie Graham, who bizarrely declares that he plays baseball immediately upon entering the car. The men discuss how Ray’s dad always wanted to be a baseball player, and how he had Ray pick up the sport instead. They became estranged over time, and the final straw was Ray saying that he could never respect a man whose hero was a criminal (meaning Shoeless Joe). Terence and Ray agree that building the field and bringing Joe back are penance, because that makes perfect sense in this situation, sure. When they get back to the farm, Annie is starstruck by her favorite author, but not as struck as he is to see two teams of dead 1920s allstars playing baseball! Graham finally gets his at-bat, but his winking gambit is not appreciated, though a wonderful time is had by all.

I’ll sock you into next Tuesday! (Source)

• Time for money to ruin everything! Mark arrives the next morning, walking right through the team warmups he can’t see. The family and Terence are arranged on the bleachers, looking so at home at their little ballpark that Karin even has a hot dog! Mark begins his pitch⁶ that if Ray sells the farm to him, then he’ll let them keep the house. Otherwise, the bank will foreclose! Karin serenely predicts that people will come to Iowa City, get bored, and then drive to them instead and buy tickets to see the game. Terence agrees, saying folks will pay $20 a head for a chance to feel these feelings. Mark has had enough of this and gets into a scuffle with Ray, knocking Karin off the bleachers and causing her to choke on Chekhov’s hot dog! Archie steps off the field, knowing he can never come back, and becomes the elderly Doc Graham again. He saves Karin, and before he disappears into the corn, Joe tells him he was good.

  • Tyler: It’s bad enough that a literal child comes up with the financial justification for this situation (such that it is), but the fact that it comes at the end of the movie is borderline hilarious. She just … knows that people will be magically drawn to the field and also be able to see the players?

  • Ellen: I got the impression the “spirit” was speaking through her.

  • Tyler: If true, this marks our second post in which a little girl is possessed by a spirit. Tis the season!

That’s it: that’s the tweet (Source)

• Perhaps it’s the relief of not having killed his niece, but Mark can see the players now! He urges Ray to keep the field. Joe invites Terence to enter the corn, and after a slight hissy fit from Ray, he proceeds through with cautious glee. Joe reminds Ray of The Voice’s original message, and he realizes (for the second time) that this was all about his father. The catcher removes his mask, and it’s Ray’s father, John, as a young man! John asks the traditional ghost question, “Is this heaven?” Ray introduces them to his family, but doesn’t mention he’s Ray’s father. As John turns to walk into the corn, Ray asks his dad to play catch! John gladly accepts, and the two throw the ball around as hundreds of cars are seen approaching the field, fulfilling the prophecy that people will come to the field to watch baseball.

The one true dream (Source)

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Intermission

Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”

This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … g-g-g-g-ghosts!

When the wood bats creak and the cornfields quake, 

Spooks come out for some swings to take!

Happy haunts from wall to wall, ‘nuff to field two teams in all,

Sox stripe-y ghosts come out to play some baaaaallllllll.

Now don’t sell your farm and don’t be alarmed,

Ray, it is time to show off your arm.

Walking out of corn so tall, slightly creepy to us all,

Sox stripe-y ghosts come out to play some ball!

When you see the Ump make that fist pump,

That guy’s out, next up should jump.

So much more fun than the mall, Iowans will hear the call,

Sox stripe-y ghosts come out to play some ball!!

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Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?

Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.

Field of Dreams’ Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:

• Field of Dreams is based on the 1982 novel Shoeless Joe by Canadian author W.P. Kinsella, who kept his own surname in the story and was maintained for the film adaptation. Kinsella developed the idea for Shoeless Joe while attending the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a graduate-level creative writing program through the University of Iowa whose graduates and faculty have won 30 Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction, Journalism, or Poetry.

• Shoeless Joe included a lightly fictionalized version of reclusive writer J.D. Salinger. Kinsella, despite never meeting Salinger, found it fitting given that Salinger used the surname Kinsella in two stories and his mother was born in Iowa. Salinger, however, was a litigious person at this point and threatened to sue if the “J.D. Salinger” character appeared in any other medium. As such, when Shoeless Joe was adapted into Field of Dreams, the character was changed to the fictional Terence Mann, portrayed by the late great James Earl Jones.

• Field of Dreams was written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, who at one point was a Vice President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka “The Academy”). 

• Though the film was initially going to share the same name as the book, eventually it was changed to Field of Dreams, which Robinson didn’t care for. Kinsella later told Robinson that his original title for the book was The Dream Field and that his publisher made him change it to Shoeless Joe.

  • Ellen: Hot take: all of these are bad names.

• Time for some quick fun facts about some of the lesser-known members of the cast:

  • Gaby Hoffman, who played little Karin Kinsella, grew up living in NYC’s Chelsea Hotel. She later had roles in Uncle Buck and Sleepless in Seattle before taking a break from acting.

  • Timothy Busfield, known best by these authors as Danny Concannon from The West Wing, was inducted into the Sacramento Baseball Hall of Fame as a pitcher earlier this year. Over nine seasons in the 1990s, Busfield went 30-12 for the semi-pro Sacramento Smokeys.

  • Field of Dreams was the last film role for acclaimed actor Burt Lancaster (whom we met two years ago in From Here To Eternity), who played the elder Moonlight Graham. He originally turned down the role (as did James Stewart) but a baseball-loving friend convinced him to take it.

  • Teenagers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were extras in the scenes shot at Fenway Park.

  • The identity of “The Voice” who speaks to Ray has remained unknown to this day. While some believe it was Kevin Costner or Ray Liotta, W.P. Kinsella said he was told it was actor Ed Harris, the husband of Amy Madigan⁷ (who played Ray’s wife Annie).

• The final scene of the movie, in which an aerial shot shows hundreds of cars driving to the field, became a community-wide event for the locals of Dyersville. When it came time to shoot that scene, the entire town was blacked out and local extras drove their cars to the field, switching between their low and high beams to give the illusion of movement.

• Two MLB games were later played at the Field of Dreams site, adjacent to the original field at an 8,000-seat field modeled after the former home of the Chicago White Sox, Comiskey Park. In the first game, a 2021 matchup between the White Sox and Yankees, Kevin Costner and both teams emerged from the cornfield in the outfield. The second game, played a year later between the Reds and Cubs, also had the teams enter from the cornfield, this time with Hall of Fame members from each team accompanying them.

  • Ellen: These games wreaked havoc on my search for good gifs for the plot synopsis, let me tell ya.

• In 2021, plans were announced for a Field of Dreams TV show on Peacock, written by Michael Schur (of The Office, Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine fame) and starring Chris Pratt on a budget of $15 million per episode. One year later the concept was dropped.

  • Tyler: Given his track record I’m sure Mike Schur would’ve done a great job with this, but boy does this seem like a weird concept for a show. I take it the Field of Dreams MLB games didn’t get the viewership they were hoping for?

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Oscar NomNomNomz

Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.

It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role⁸. And the nomnomnominees are:

• An ear of corn from the Kinsella farm

• A beer at Fenway Park

• The hot dog stuck in Karin’s throat

And the Oscar goes to … the hot dog stuck in Karin’s throat! Unfortunately, the hot dog piece is now in the Field of Dreams Museum, so we will accept this award on its behalf.

When you come up with a business plan AND win Oscar NomNomNomz (Source)

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Fill In The Blank

How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?

Ellen: I’d like to share some dogs and beers with The Academy, but they’re paying. Much like my experience with baseball itself, I’m mostly just vibing. It’s an interesting concept, and I really enjoy the family dynamic. You don’t have a strong sense of where the movie is going, but I suppose that mirrors Ray’s experience, because the man is simply winging it. The “mechanics” of the field, like why a ghost can never come back in but you can bring it from elsewhere, or what in the absolute heck happened to Terence when he walked through the corn and will he return as a player?? Who knows, and this movie says: who cares! I was kind of confused but I enjoyed myself, but I kind of struggle to justify the nomination.

Tyler: I’d like to tip my cap to The Academy for hitting a double, even though they didn’t drive in a run. I’m happy to say I now understand why this movie is so popular with sports fans: between the paternal relationships at the heart of the movie and the yearning to play a game you were once so passionate about, it just oozes nostalgia. (And with a handsome male lead, his understanding wife, and the middle America setting, this might also be our most aggressively American movie we’ve covered to date.) 

All that being said, Field of Dreams still didn’t quite hit with me as much as I thought it would. While it goes out of its way to introduce logic in some aspects (e.g., the financial repercussions of plowing over your livelihood), the “magic” that’s the undercurrent of the plot seems to only make any sense strictly to move the plot itself along. The interpretations of The Voice and their dreams and the lines of people showing up at the end because … they also heard The Voice? Were driving back from caucusing? Vibes? … are either under-/poorly/not explained for a movie that is supposed to be one of the year’s best, in my opinion. As the movie was ending I could feel it wanting to strike an emotional chord, but it kind of just fell flat. Maybe it’d help if I didn’t have a good relationship with my father? (Hi Dad!)

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Let The Credits Roll

Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:

• If you have plots and feelings of your own (on the movie or ILTBTA in general), feel free to comment on the post or simply reply to the email. If you liked reading this: tell your friends! If you hated reading this: tell your friends how much you hated it by forwarding it to them!

• If you’re a weirdo like Tyler and use the social media site formerly known as Twitter, feel free to follow us there @BlankTheAcademy for ILTBTA updates, rejected jokes, and other random movie-related musings. Once we reach a million followers, we’ll offer to purchase the @ILTBTA handle from the butthead who snagged it before us.

• ILTBTA is also on Letterboxd, the social networking site for movie fans. Follow us there to read our Spreadsheet comments of our ILTBTA movies, plus our ratings of other movies we watch!

• If you’d like to start a wild Best Picture journey of your own, feel free to download a copy of The Spreadsheet. Bonus: checking off the boxes is oddly satisfying.

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Post-Credits Scene

Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.

For our next post, which coincidentally falls on Election Day (REMINDER: VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN IF YOU CAN, BUT IF YOU CAN’T IT’S OKAY JUST PLEASE VOTE), we’ll be watching the Washington, D.C.-based movie Born Yesterday. Released in 1950 and featuring an Oscar-winning performance from Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday follows a literal garbage lobbyist, his girlfriend, and the reporter he hires to teach her some manners. Presumably, hijinks ensue. It’s available to stream for free on Amazon Prime Video, and can be rented elsewhere if you’re strong enough to not have an Amazon Prime membership.

Until then, no really: vote!

1. Tyler: Hey Phillies, are you fucking kidding me? The Mets?! You’re gonna fall apart against the Mets? Did Grimace make you forget how to throw a baseball (starting pitchers aside) and NOT swing at a ball that is fifteen feet away from the strike zone? At least get knocked out by a slightly more respectable team like the Dodgers. Gracious what an absolute embarrassment, burn it down.

2. Ellen: Gracious, the one thing I thought I knew about this movie was an incorrect quote!
Tyler: A real “Luke, I am your father” moment for ya.

3. See what we did there?

4. Tyler: At one point, Ray says “See if you can hit my curve” which made me wonder if the curveball was even around yet when Jackson played. Sure enough, it was invented in the 1860s! Let this serve as your reminder that baseball is old.

5. That’s $18 in today’s money, and unless it’s dollar dog night, you’re not getting that value today!

6. I will not stop.

7. Mad again? Sounds like my ex-wife!

8. Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.