Ray, people will come, Ray.

The power of the catch.

Last week as part of my most recent sojourn across the country I found myself in Des Monies. My original Iowa adventure was going to be the 88,000 square foot “Largest Truck Stop in the World.” It boasts a miniature golf course, a water slide, and the most exotic collection of truck stop hookers in the Midwest… 

I never made it.

“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.”

Field of Dreams was a mere three hours out of my way.

“Of course, we won’t mind if you 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.”

The parking lot was full. On a Tuesday. On a perfect summer day in the middle of nowhere. 

Admission was free. I paid the twenty dollar suggested donation. Not charging admission was a brilliant way to do it because it took money out of the equation and let you just “be there”. If they charged twenty dollars it would have felt like a rip off and you wouldn’t be able to settle into the genuine magic of the place.

And it is magical. There were over one hundred people milling around what is pretty much a HS baseball field with corn in the outfield. I saw fathers playing catch with sons. Fathers playing catch with daughters. Moms throwing underhand to T-Ball aged kids. Old men using canes to keep them from falling as they walked around the bases, lost in some distant memory of a playing the game.

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I went to the merch store first, because I wanted to buy a baseball. I could have brought one from home but didn’t realize I would be here and you couldn’t not have a baseball in hand as you walked around.

I was wearing my late father’s favorite cap. I placed it in the outfield, moved off a few paces, and threw the ball at it. Then I started to cry.

The power of the catch.

There was a man with his wife mid-seventies who was watching and offered to toss the ball around and so there we both were. Throwing the ball back and forth, talking, enjoying the moment. He missed his twin brother, I missed my Dad. We loved where we were and what we doing in paying tribute to them both.

 

I spoke to lot of people there and it wasn’t about MLB. It was about baseball...

Memories of games they played, or attended or listened to.  Memories of watching their kids progress from T-Ball to little league to in some cases, the minors. These were all people who deeply loved the game.

Lots of kids there. It gave me hope. 

Above all, it was the transfer of memories from one generation to the next.

“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.

Field of Dreams has a palpable energy that has to be experienced to be understood. The closest feeling I can think of was when I stood in a circle of rocks in Sedona Arizona. Joyous. Ethereal. Yet at the same time real.  

I could have sat there for hours.

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As an aside… yes I did the “walk out of the cornfield” and you can see the stadium that they built for their made for TV game in left field but a-ways off. 

They are tearing it down and building a bigger permanent one so they can increase attendance. I guess baseball can build a stadium without bilking the taxpayers. They plan to build several ball fields and a support complex so they can hold large baseball tournaments much like Cooperstown has done.

I’m actually OK with that.

Currently, Field of Dreams has only one sponsored area, the pitchers mound, brought to you by a company I won’t name and a picture I won’t show. 

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As I left the parking lot I saw more cars pulling in.

The power of the catch.