ABSTRACT
By now every baseball aficionado worth his salt has seen Field of Dreams, a marvelously maudlin film about fathers and sons and the possibility of reconciliation provided by baseball fantasy. Although the movie remains remarkably true to W.P. Kinsella's wonderful novel, Shoeless Joe, it does take a few liberties. Most significant for me, as I remember it, it places the birth of Ray Kinsella, the main character, in Brooklyn. In both the book and the movie, Ray is the son of John, a father whose passion for baseball is no less intense than the battles between himself and his boy. John dies before father and son have a chance to resolve their conflicts. Ray seeks penance and ultimately finds reconciliation by building a baseball diamond in his Iowa cornfield; providing a place where the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson, his father's hero, other major league greats, and eventually even his father return in their prime to play the game they love. It is here, too, that Ray and John have the catch that a young son refused to have with his father and find peace with each other.
