Iowa I Opener: Field of Dreams

John Kinsella: "Is this Heaven?"
Ray Kinsella: "It's Iowa."

Terrence Mann: "Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom."

Dialogue from Field of Dreams, 1989.

Field of Dreams is a rarity--a sentimental film and a guys' movie. And in less than two hours a farm is saved and a father and son relationship is repaired. All because of baseball.

Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella who plows under part of his farm to build a baseball diamond because a voice tells him, "Build it, and he will come."

Field of Dreams is based on W. P. Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe, which of course refers to Shoeless Joe Jackson, the best known of the infamous 1919 American League champion Chicago White Sox--the "Black Sox" who threw the World Series.

But the movie almost didn't get filmed in Iowa. The producers of the film had to be convinced to film it in the Hawkeye State. Greatly helping matters was the determined Iowa Film Office--they found the Lansing family farm in Dyersville--which fit the needs of the filmmakers: a big white farmhouse surrounded by cornfields at the end of a long road--Heaven was found. The only alterations needed for the house were the addition of a covered porch and some minor interior changes.

The movie, however, was made at a bad time for agriculture--the 1988 drought year--and since ballplayers walking in from a cornfield was a integral part of the story--Man had to do what Mother Nature couldn't--a nearby creek was used as an irrigation source. Build it...and the corn will come.

Field of Dreams premiered shortly after the start of the 1989 Major League Baseball season--while back at the Lansing Farm, an amazing thing happened--people came to Dyersville to play baseball. Plans to replant the ball field with corn were shelved--and a tourist attraction was born.

And 21 years later, people still come to Iowa to play baseball because "It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."

As you can see, people were playing baseball on the late August Sunday afternoon I visited. There weren't any organized games going on--but in Field of Dreams--there weren't that many games played either.

There are bleachers around the diamond--which helped with my camera work--and of course a souvenir stand--where I purchased a baseball cap.

Then I left Heaven--onto my next Iowa stop, Anamosa. I switched on my car radio to WSCR Chicago and listened to the White Sox game. It was late in the game--the South Siders were tied 2-2 with the Kansas City Royals. It would have been heavenly if Kinsella's White Sox won--ease his pain--but they lost they lost in the 10th inning.

Between Dyersville and Anamosa is Cascade, the hometown of Urban "Red" Faber, a pitcher for the 1919 White Sox and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Terrence Mann: "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 has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

Next: Where North Avenue ends

Earlier posts:

Guttenberg and its pool
A final look at Effigy Mounds National Monument
More Effigy Mounds
Effigy Mounds National Monument
Freedom Rock and Veterans Day
Pikes Peak
Buffalo Bill