“Fields of Dreams”

By Ken Laschinger

As I sat down to write my blog entry, I still had not finalized what my topic would be. What I can tell you is that baseball was on my mind; Opening Day 2012 is upon us. I mentioned to a co-worker that I was struggling to come up with my subject, and she challenged me to somehow incorporate baseball. That’s when it occurred to me…

Perhaps one of the greatest speeches in any movie (at least in my opinion) is the speech by James Earl Jones (Terrence Mann) in “Field of Dreams”. As I replayed that scene from memory in my head, I began to realize that there were a lot of parallels to high school athletics. Courtesy of www.imdb.com:

“Ray, people will come, Ray. 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…

And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves 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 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.

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 us of all that once was good and could be again. Oh... people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Sure seems like high school sports to me… “it’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again… People will most definitely come.” How about 500 million people annually?!