Field of Dreams Returns With Start of Season

DYERSVILLE, Iowa -- More than 18 years after Ray Kinsella built it, people still come to the Field of Dreams. Just like Shoeless Joe Jackson, throngs of baseball fans -- 65,000 a year -- are drawn to Dyersville, Iowa, to see the ball park Kevin Costner's character built in a cornfield in the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams."

The field reopens for the season April 1, two days before the first major league baseball game takes place. Visitors come from all 50 states and dozens of countries. "There's not a day goes by that a car doesn't come down the lane," Boeckenstedt said. "...Mainly, they've seen the movie, love the movie and want to come to some quiet little place and that's what this is." There's often a game going on, but the lineup is never written down.

"It's just a pickup game from morning to night," Boeckenstedt said. "A family from California meets a family from New York and they all play together." Denny Grall made the six-hour trip from Escanaba, Michigan, where he works as a sports editor for the local paper, The Daily Press, with his family to see a fantasy game sponsored by Upper Deck, the sports trading card company. "We had a chance to see (former Cleveland Indian) Bob Feller pitch for two innings, which was a big thrill," he said. "That's what Field of Dreams is all about -- living out a fantasy, living out a dream." Feller is a native Iowan.

"I really believe the Field of Dreams, over this length of time, has become a part of American culture," said Keith Rahe, who manages the Ghost Players, a community team made up from some of the ball players from the movie. The team shows up at the park each Sunday from June to September, emerging from the corn to host an hour-long baseball game with visitors. "At noon, the guys appear out of the corn like they did in the movie," Rahe said. "I've seen it a thousand times and it still sends a shiver down my back."

Families wander around the outfield, playing catch or posing for pictures as they step in and out of the corn. There's a shaded area in right field where fans take a break from the game and watch the action with a cool drink at the picnic tables. There's no admission, and the field owners get no city revenue for upkeep.

Ron Boeckenstedt says it's just nice to watch visitors play ball in what once was a cornfield. "We see people enjoy coming and thank us for keeping it," Boeckenstedt. "There aren't too many little places like this that operate in the world."