By WILLIE STEELE
Ray Kinsella heard a voice. Ray Kinsella had a vision of the field. Ray Kinsella had a supportive wife who encouraged him to follow his wish of building a baseball field on his farm.
I heard no voice. I had no vision. But when my literary agent emailed me to say sheâd secured tickets for me to attend the Field of Dreams game between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees in Dyersville, Iowa, my wife was as supportive as Annie Kinsella was to Ray.
Sitting in my hotel room in Charlottesville, Virginia – where I was attending a Civil War seminar – I checked my email and saw Carolyn Swayze, the same book agent Albertan writer W.P. Kinsella had for many years, had reached out to me and Kinsellaâs oldest daughter, Shannon, saying there were four tickets available, but we needed to let her know immediately if weâd be able to use them.
Knowing I had to be in Ohio for a wedding rehearsal the day after the game was scheduled to be played, I called my wife Heather to explain the situation.
âTake the tickets. Weâll figure it out,â my wife said.
Annie Kinsella has nothing on my wife.
So I claimed the tickets and scrambled to figure out who would go with me. My youngest brother was the father of the groom in the upcoming wedding, so he was a scratch. My oldest brother just had the transmission go out on his car. He, the one who was notorious for uttering the line, âNever let the lack of money stand in the way of having a good time,â had somehow become a responsible adult over the past 25 years.
My wife reached out again and said, âYou should take Marianne.â My youngest daughter was going to start her 8th grade year a few days later, and she would already be back in school when the game was played.
âIf youâre OK with it, Iâm OK with it,â I responded. âWho really learns stuff the first week of school anyway?â
As a teacher for more than two decades myself, I felt more than qualified to answer that question.
The next couple hours were spent looking at flights from our home in Tennessee to Chicago, the city with the closest airport where we could use our frequent-flyer rewards points, and then flights from Chicago to Ohio the next day so we wouldnât miss the wedding. Normally, I wouldnât have been so concerned about a wedding that wasnât my own, but my nephew and his fiancĂŠ had asked me to perform the ceremony, so I felt like it would be strange if I didnât show up.
DREAMS TAKING FLIGHT
A week-and-a-half later, my daughter and I were up before the sun, headed towards the airport to see the game that evening.
In the movie Field of Dreams, Ray drives an old Volkswagon microbus to kidnap Terence Mann to take him to a game at Fenway Park. In Kinsellaâs novel Shoeless Joe, on which the film is based, Ray drives an old beat-up Datsun to kidnap J.D. Salinger for the ballgame. My luck was much better than either version of Ray Kinsella. The woman at the rental car counter asked if I wanted a free upgrade. Having already pulled my daughter from school for two days to attend her first ever major league game, a game honouring Field of Dreams, I like to think I was a cool dad for a day. I solidified that status when I grabbed the keys to a white Ford Mustang and we hit the road.
Four hours later, we were in Dyersville, Iowa. And so was everyone else in the state it seemed.

You know how, when the camera pulls back at the end of the movie, and the line of 1,500 cars stretches out from the farm into town? And you know how that somehow felt peaceful and conveyed a sense of romanticism? Donât believe it. That was entirely Hollywood. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, we parked the Mustang and made our way towards the Lansing Farm on which the film was made in the summer of 1988.
Sporting my Willie Stargell Pittsburgh Pirates jersey, I was surrounded by a sea of Yankees and White Sox shirts. One guy was yelling at some folks wearing New York hats, âGo Yankees!â And when he saw a Sox jersey, he hollered, âGo White Sox!â But when he saw me, he did a double take and yelled, âGo baseball!â
I thanked him and said, âYeah, but not much of whatâs being played in Pittsburgh right now looks like baseball. Weâre in a rebuilding decade. Or four.â
My daughter and I had been to the Field of Dreams movie site two years earlier for the 30th anniversary celebration of the film. Weâd also had my wife and oldest daughter on that trip. But this day was for the two of us. I wanted this to be a day we’d both remember for years to come, for all the right reasons. But having watched many of the decisions Major League Baseball (MLB) has made over the past couple years, including their dismantling of the minor leagues, I wasnât confident they would pull this off. Iâm not sure commissioner Rob Manfred couldnât find a way to mess up a one-car parade.
AS AMERICAN AS …
As we entered the field, Marianne and I saw the trailer with the âhot dog apple pieâ weâd heard about. If youâre unfamiliar with it, television personality and chef Guy Fieri had concocted this concession just for the occasion. Itâs just like it sounds. An apple pie with a hot dog in it.
We sat in the sun eating the snack, watching people who were enjoying the movie site, filing into the corn maze, and soaking up the atmosphere. I didnât mind the unique treat, but my daughter passed hers to me with one bite taken from it and said, âIs this Heaven? No, Dad, this is from the other place.â
Iâd have to find something to do to make sure that the taste of an apple pie hot dog didnât ruin her day.

Earlier in the summer, Iâd sent my dadâs 1950s era Billy Pierce model glove to a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota to be relaced and reconditioned. Dad died unexpectedly, about two months after Kinsella, in 2016. Having published Kinsellaâs biography in 2018, it was a bit surreal to play catch with my daughter, using Dadâs glove on the field that was inspired by Kinsellaâs writing.
With the game getting closer, we made our way through the corn maze towards the field. Iâve been to more games than I can count over the years. Major league stadiums. Minor league ballparks. High school and Little League fields. Sandlots. Iâve seen all types, from large to small, from elaborate to the bare bones. But Iâve never seen anything as unique as the diamond nestled into an Iowa cornfield.
We settled into our seats, ten rows up from home plate, slightly towards the first base dugout where the Yankees were. My daughter had already declared, âDad, I canât cheer for the Yankees. Iâm going for the Field of Dreams team.â
Shannon Kinsella, the authorâs daughter, appreciated Marianneâs stance and told us, âDad always hated the Yankees. I canât cheer for them either.â
During the pregame, when Kevin Costner emerged from the corn, the filmâs soundtrack playing over the sound system, I felt a lump rise in my throat. When the Yankees and White Sox stepped from the corn field, I glanced to my left and saw Shannon tearing up. And I found myself missing my own Dad. Heâd have enjoyed this.
My daughter did not want to miss any of the game, forgoing even a pretzel or hot dog from the concession stand to watch every at-bat. âItâs ok. We can eat something later,â she said.
Feeling comfortable with Chicagoâs 7-4 lead in the top of the 9th inning, I was already thinking about the drive back. But when Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton each hit two-run home runs, I had a sinking feeling my nearly perfect day was about to have the wheels fall off.
“ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN”
I know people often say this after the fact, but I promise you the following conversation took place:
âAll we need is for one guy to get one base and then have someone hit a home run,â I told my daughter.
âYou think?â she said.
âAnything can happen,â I responded.
Following a Danny Mendick groundout, Seby Zavala walked.
âAll we need now is a home run,â I reminded Marianne.
A minute later, Tim Anderson connected with the pitch from Zack Britton, and everyone there, including the Yankees, knew it was headed for the corn in right field.
Shannon Kinsella, in tears, wrapped me in a big hug. We both had tears in our eyes. And as I high-fived and hugged my daughter, I heard people tell Shannon, âYour Dad couldnât have written a better ending to this game!â
And they were right.

Under the glow of the stadium lights, Shannon and I talked about the game and her father.
None of this would have happened had W.P. Kinsella not written âShoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowaâ in 1978.
None of this would have happened had that story not been expanded into the novel Shoeless Joe.
None of this would have happened had Phil Robinson not adapted that novel into Field of Dreams.
And even if it had somehow happened, I wouldnât have been there with my daughter had W.P. Kinsella not reached out to me in 2012 about writing his biography.
In both the book and the movie, the Voice gives Ray three messages:
âIf you build it, he will come.â
âEase his pain.â
âGo the distance.â
However, my favourite line from the Voice is in the novel, but was omitted from the film.
At the end of the story, the Voice says, âFulfill the dream.â
And that night in Iowa, with my daughter happily cheering for the White Sox as the fireworks marked the game’s end, we watched the dream being fulfilled. Kinsella’s story wasnât on the page. It was no longer on the big screen. Kinsella’s story was playing out in real time as the last of the fireworks fell from the sky against a backdrop of a summer Iowa night.
Several times on the way back to Chicago, my daughter thanked me for what she called, âAn awesome day.â
The next morning, after two hours of sleep, she thanked me again.
And when she was working on making up a lot of missed homework the following week (it turns out they DO teach things during the first week after all), I asked her if she was sorry sheâd gone to the game.
âNo way!â she blurted. âThat was awesome! It was my first major league game!â
I donât have the heart to tell her they wonât all be like that.
But for now, it doesnât matter. Kinsella wrote it, and people came.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Willie Steele is the author of Going the Distance: The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella. He is also a professor of English at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee and the editor of NINE: A Journey of Baseball History and Culture. Many thanks to him for sharing this guest column with us.
Wonderful Willie!! Wish I had been there with you. I’ve always been SO happy I helped bring you and Bill together. I have read many things about Bill, watched Field of Dreams about 10 times, and always have tears in my eyes. Glad you had a good time!! Thank you again. Al Trabant
Thank you Willie, the tears are backâŚ