On This Date: April 21, 1989: “Field of Dreams” was released.

I grew up in Iowa and remember when this movie came out.  People were wearing “Is This Heaven?  No, Its Iowa” t-shirts and slapping bumper stickers that said the same thing on their cars.  I didn’t get it.  My hometown was 1,000 and life rarely changed.  People got so bored our major contribution to society was gossip…and of course corn.  I didn’t understand how “heaven” could be so boring.  I watched the movie, didn’t get that either.  In my defense I was 11 or 12.  There wasn’t any extraterrestrial life, no wild adventure kids could go on to save their parents houses, and definitely no high profile ghost chasing in New York City.  It took me a few years to get it.  Its about relationships and regret.  Its about as American as it can get.  Family, the struggle to provide for your family, and of course baseball.  It has one of the greatest speeches about baseball(or anything)to really get the blood flowing.  If I was a GM of a baseball team, I would play that speech at the beginning of every season and during every game of the playoffs.

Years later I would go there when my cousin got married in Dyersville, IA. We pulled up in the heat of August with tuxedos and (the women) in bridal gowns.  My cousin and his wife were able to go sit on the swing on the porch(they do NOT let everyone do this).  And years later I also got the movie.  It was no longer a boring movie based in the Iowa cornfields.  It was a chance to talk to my Dad.  He loved baseball, he also died when I was younger, and very ironically his name was also John.  The older I got the more I related to Ray.  Enjoying being able to play a simple game of catch with my Dad and introduce him to my wife would be things I would never be able to do.

Whenever the movie comes on TV,I feel myself drawn to it like the hordes of cars drawn to a cornfield in Iowa. This  field did indeed become a tourist attraction for baseball fans and fans of the movie. As of 2009, an estimated 65,000 people had visited the farm. The farm was sold for $3.4 million in 2011. The company that made the purchase added several improvements and provided tours of the film, increasing visitors to 100,000 every year.

They will come Ray…and they still do. Happy 30th Birthday “Field Of Dreams!”