For every kid who ever entered a baseball stadium, it becomes a treasured memory. It is usually the biggest thing one has ever seen or experienced at that time. And the moment you first get a glimpse of the grass, perfectly mowed and greener than green could be, your mouth curls into a smile and eyes light up as the entirety of that moment…that single moment opens up a world that you had only dreamed about.
On one Thursday evening in August, that experience was reawakened in all of us in a corn field in Iowa.
Joe Buck perhaps said it best. ‘It is a quiet crowd…almost reverential…like going to church.’
To baseball fans everywhere this is their cathedral of dreams…dreams of childhood…a thousand Christmases all rolled into one.
Everything was perfect. The old fashioned scoreboard with people dressed in the era putting up big numbers.
The dugouts crafted in every detail.
The background was absolutely perfect.
In the 9th, the mighty Yankees showed why they are legends. Behind by 3, and a man on, Babe hit a majestic home run followed by Lou to give the Yanks in grey a one run lead.
In the bottom of the 9th, after the catcher got on, Joe stepped to the plate…cue the music…’I knew what I was looking for and I didn’t miss it. Just coming here playing in the middle of corn, who would have thought that? And who would have thought I’d walk it off as well?
Who would have thought?
Who would have believed?
It was a game played in reality base on a novel filled with hopes and dreams which turned into something better than one could ever imagine or written.
Is this heaven?
No.
But in this world, it is as close as one could hope. Perhaps this is the way it should end.
Perhaps they should never play a game here again. Perhaps, you cannot improve on perfection.
They walked out of the corn fields with wonderment in their eyes. And one could not help notice the stacked Sox logo over one of the team’s left breast on their uniforms. Was that Gandil, Cicotte, Williams, Risberg, Felsch, McMullin, Weaver and Jackson?
In this cathedral of the game, the legend of Shoeless Joe will endure, one hundred and two years after the fact. Anderson made sure of that as the Sox won.
This is the end of the greatest story ever. Man created illusion. Man extended the illusion into a movie that touched us all. Man then perfected the fiction into unbelievable reality of greatness with a Major League game that may have been the greatest ever played.
Man now should leave it the was it was…filled with a cavalcade of memory of what perfection is.
Dad? Did it really happen?
Did you see it? Tell me all about it?
But first, let’s play catch.
#PlayBall #FieldofDreams #Glorious
overtheshouldermlb 