By: Mike Carter
The Field of Dreams game is still playing on repeat in my head. Let me try and explain to you why.
When I was in high school, I used to attend a weeklong writing camp at the University of Iowa. This was right about the time ‘Field of Dreams” was getting released, and part of the draw of going to the camp was to be able to stroll the campus of the university. While doing that one afternoon, I noticed that W.P. “Bill” Kinsella, author of “Shoeless Joe,” which became the film was going to be doing a reading that week and I immediately decided to go. I went, scrounged up a few dollars to buy a paperback copy of his book, and had him sign it. I still have it; on the inside he inscribed “go the distance, Mike” as the voice tells Ray in his cornfield in the film.
So, Jack and I pulled up our chairs and our bad snacks and watched what Sox manager Tony La Russa has now dubbed “The Corn Game,” and we watched it all the way to the end. You know in the movie there is that gentle voice giving Ray visions and ideas. No joke when I say this: Jack turned to me at one point in the eighth inning, and he said, “TA is going to do something big. Don’t you feel it?” And I admit: I did not. But the 11-year-old sitting next to me did, and he was right. We were both jumping around the living room (me as much as an old graybeard like me can) and Jack was so excited and yelling “I told you! I told you!” It was one of the best moments we have shared in recent memory. The hook is set in Jack now and he’s watching much more, perhaps because his favorite team is in first place?
One interesting thing to me was that MLB did a great job marketing for once. Sure, the scene with Kevin Costner reprising his Ray Kinsella role from the “Field of Dreams” move was hokey, but guess what? Baseball is hokey and romantic at the same time. You had two of the oldest and most historic teams in MLB playing each other in a field of corn in rural Iowa, and over six million peopled tuned in. Did you know that was the highest rated MLB regular season game in 16 years? Don’t wait until next year to seize this moment, Rob Manfred. Now let’s see what they do with it. Probably nothing, which is sad. Sadly, the next thing people will remember will be the coming strife between the players’ union and owners this winter, including talk of a salary cap floor and luxury tax thresholds. It’s going to get ugly.
It’s amazing how so few people have the power to create and destroy in major league baseball.
As I age, I recognize that I do not know as much as I thought I did when I was younger. But I do know this: things are changing. While many fans gnash their teeth over bat flips and celebrations, I wonder if they recognize that the game they love is changing. And changing for the better. I am not talking about launch angle and velocity. I am talking about the new brand of player: young, confident, full of love and respect for the game, and more than I have ever seen in my fandom, playing with joy and reckless abandon. Smiles on their faces, getting paid large amounts of money to play a game they started playing when they were five years old. I’ve seen some rhetoric on social media that the “antics” of today’s players are a turn-off for many fans who want a return to the somber, staid superstars of years past.
Know who it is NOT a turn-off for? Kids. I have the good fortune to coach one of our local teams, a group of 11-year-old boys. They come to practice wearing the jerseys of their favorite players. As we do drills, they mimic their favorite player. I have one youngster who, every time we have our baserunning drills, pretends to homer and watch the flight of his ball, looking into an imaginary dugout of his teammates and celebrating. It cracks me up. But you know what I love about it? He’s engaged. He’s having fun. And he’s watching the games on TV while falling deeper in love with it each passing week. This young guy will pass this on to his sons and daughters one day. And the game will have changed again by that time; not so much that we old-timers don’t recognize it, but it will be different in 25 years when these kids have kids. And it will go on, because try as they may, those few people who have the power to create and destroy haven’t found a way to kill baseball yet, and I doubt they ever will. It’s poetic and beautiful, and something like that is never destroyed.
As for the Field of Dreams game, picture this: old, rotund me, sitting there with Jack, my 11-year-old son, watching Tim Anderson hit a shot into the corn to win the game in a walk off winner for my beloved White Sox. And further picture old, rotund me and Jack, jumping around like the Sox had just won the World Series, and screaming and yelling late at night while others around us tried to rest. It was awesome and something neither of us will forget.
Because he’s getting older and I don’t control what happens next in life. I can’t change what happened five minutes ago (although I wish I could, because I spilled coffee in my truck, and it smells badly now) and I cannot predict what happens five minutes from now. I know my son loves the game, and so, mission accomplished. But I also know the strife of teenage years is coming, and with that, changes in our relationship and how we spend time together. So, I cherish this now, all the moments of hitting grounders and throwing popups, the countless hours squatting these old, heavy bones behind home plate to catch another wayward four-seamer from Jack or any of his friends. My job in these matters is to create love for the best game there is on the planet. I hope I am doing that. I am just doing the same thing that my father and coaches did for me along the way in my youth. I find that I often recall the long, arduous practices more than I do the games. Baseball is a labor of love and I know my time being on the field with the players and coaches will be at an end before I know it. I keep reminding myself of so many things, but mostly, to try and stay centered on this very moment.
I hope you are able to enjoy what is left of summer and able to watch some of these fun pennant races.