Our Field of Dreams

You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day. – Doc “Moonlight” Graham, to Ray Kinsella in the movie “Field of Dreams”

In the summer of 2003, just before embarking on a family vacation to Minnesota, I pitched an idea to my editors at the Sporting News: A 15^th anniversary story about a baseball field in Iowa.

By that point, “Field of Dreams” was already part of baseball lore and 50,000-60,000 people a year were making the pilgrimage to the tiny farm outside of Dyersville, Ia., where the movie was filmed in the summer of 1988.

And this was Sporting News calling, so then-owners Don and Becky Lansing were more than gracious to a sportswriter who asked if it would be OK to bring her family along for the interview. It was more than OK. Though they no longer lived in the farmhouse that was used to film the interiors, they met us there, gave us a tour, and offered the porch for the interview. And that’s where I sat talking to the Lansings while Tom, Matt and Jack played catch on the field, frolicked in the corn and acted out scenes from the movie.

Some stories in a career transcend time, and this is one of them. It’s a moment I’ll never forget, watching my husband and our boys, who were 9 and 7 at the time, play on that field – from the same porch where Annie sat watching Ray and his dad have a catch. Sometimes, you do recognize the most significant moments of your life as they’re happening.

Below is the story as it appeared in the July 9, 2003, issue of the Sporting News as well some photos. The Lansings sold the farm in 2011 to a group from Chicago, and the Aug. 12 game between the Yankees and the White Sox has renewed interest in the site. But the movie endures, and I swear every damn time I watch it I get a lump in my throat at the end.

“Field of Dreams” has become part of our family lore, and it’s safe to say if there’s one constant for a family with grown children, it’s baseball. Two of the best moments of this summer of 2021 have happened around baseball: visiting Jack, a St. Louis realtor, in his downtown St. Louis Ballpark Village office; and heading to Chicago to see Matt, an attorney, who surprised his mom with tickets to a baseball game. Which team? The White Sox. Of course.