Ray Kinsella built it and I came.
The baseball diamond and farm where "Field of Dreams" was filmed is in Dyersville, Iowa ("Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa").
On the way north from whitewater rafting with Mike last weekend, I stayed at a Hampton Inn just north of Louisville, Kentucky. As I left the next morning for Chicago, I picked up the paper bag full of snacks that the Hampton Inns usually make available to early-departing guests. In the bag, in addition to a bottle of water, a breakfast bar, an apple, and a muffin, was a little bitty box of sugar-free mints. On the green box was a trivia question: "Q: Where is the Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams located?" On the edge of the box was: "A: Dyersville, Iowa."
That was news to me, so when I got home I watched the movie again (I have the DVD) and Googled "Field of Dreams" and sure enough - The movie site has a website, and the diamond and farmhouse have been preserved for visitors. So this morning I rode over to Dyersville - 180 miles oneway - and visited the place.
It was pretty special. The farm is about 3 miles northeast of Dyersville, which is just off Highway 20 west of Dubuque, Iowa. The 360-mile ride over and back was glorious. Highway 20 west of Rockford, Illinois runs along the top of a 50-mile long ridge that separates two wide, green valleys that fall away to both sides of the highway. It was picture-perfect cornfield America.
Turns out that the ownership of the baseball diamond itself is split between the Lansing family farm and another family. An overhead powerline runs through the diamond itself, roughly along the line from second base to third base. So the part of the field on the third base - left field side of that powerline belongs one family, and the part of the field on the first base - right field side belongs to the Lansing family. The well-known white frame farmhouse on the first base side, with the picket fence and porch swing, belongs to the Lansing family. The Lansings have owned the place since around the turn of the 20th century, as I recall from the sign by the house.
I got home about 7:00 PM today and watched the movie again. In the film, the diamond looks professionally dressed, with the traditional clay infield with bags and chalk lines. Today, in Dyersville, the infield was light gravel and there were no lines of bags. But otherwise it looked just like it did in the movie.
I arrived about 3:00 PM, and there were maybe 50-60 parents and kids playing catch, taking batting practice, and shagging flies in the outfield. There was no admission or apparent supervision - just folks throwing and catching baseballs and swinging bats. Very much in the spirit of the movie.
No sigh of Shoeless Joe, Mel Ott, Moonlight Graham, Terrance Mann, or any of the others. I knew not to even look for Ty Cobb, because the ghosts really did not like him in life, either. (He must have been a real horses ass, considering that baseball players - particularly of that era - are not the touchy-feely kind to start with.)
Filming lasted 14 weeks in the summer of 1988, which was so dry that the studio had to dam up a nearby creek to provide a way to irrigate the corn so that it would be high enough to allow men to disappear into the corn rows. Turns out that they overdid it, and by the time they started shooting the corn was taller than Kevin Costner. They had to build a long skinny platform between the rows so that they could shoot Costner walking down the rows, hearing The Voice say, "If you build it, he will come." (BTW, "he" is not Shoeless Joe in the movie, but John Kinsella, Ray's father, who in the plot had died while he and his then-college age son were estranged, as you'll recall if you've seen the movie.)
The place is maintained by donations and concession sales only. It is well worth a donation, and a visit if the opportunity presents itself.
All very cool...a great day trip from Chicago...check out the website at: www.fodmoviesite.com
On the way north from whitewater rafting with Mike last weekend, I stayed at a Hampton Inn just north of Louisville, Kentucky. As I left the next morning for Chicago, I picked up the paper bag full of snacks that the Hampton Inns usually make available to early-departing guests. In the bag, in addition to a bottle of water, a breakfast bar, an apple, and a muffin, was a little bitty box of sugar-free mints. On the green box was a trivia question: "Q: Where is the Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams located?" On the edge of the box was: "A: Dyersville, Iowa."
That was news to me, so when I got home I watched the movie again (I have the DVD) and Googled "Field of Dreams" and sure enough - The movie site has a website, and the diamond and farmhouse have been preserved for visitors. So this morning I rode over to Dyersville - 180 miles oneway - and visited the place.
It was pretty special. The farm is about 3 miles northeast of Dyersville, which is just off Highway 20 west of Dubuque, Iowa. The 360-mile ride over and back was glorious. Highway 20 west of Rockford, Illinois runs along the top of a 50-mile long ridge that separates two wide, green valleys that fall away to both sides of the highway. It was picture-perfect cornfield America.
Turns out that the ownership of the baseball diamond itself is split between the Lansing family farm and another family. An overhead powerline runs through the diamond itself, roughly along the line from second base to third base. So the part of the field on the third base - left field side of that powerline belongs one family, and the part of the field on the first base - right field side belongs to the Lansing family. The well-known white frame farmhouse on the first base side, with the picket fence and porch swing, belongs to the Lansing family. The Lansings have owned the place since around the turn of the 20th century, as I recall from the sign by the house.
I got home about 7:00 PM today and watched the movie again. In the film, the diamond looks professionally dressed, with the traditional clay infield with bags and chalk lines. Today, in Dyersville, the infield was light gravel and there were no lines of bags. But otherwise it looked just like it did in the movie.
I arrived about 3:00 PM, and there were maybe 50-60 parents and kids playing catch, taking batting practice, and shagging flies in the outfield. There was no admission or apparent supervision - just folks throwing and catching baseballs and swinging bats. Very much in the spirit of the movie.
No sigh of Shoeless Joe, Mel Ott, Moonlight Graham, Terrance Mann, or any of the others. I knew not to even look for Ty Cobb, because the ghosts really did not like him in life, either. (He must have been a real horses ass, considering that baseball players - particularly of that era - are not the touchy-feely kind to start with.)
Filming lasted 14 weeks in the summer of 1988, which was so dry that the studio had to dam up a nearby creek to provide a way to irrigate the corn so that it would be high enough to allow men to disappear into the corn rows. Turns out that they overdid it, and by the time they started shooting the corn was taller than Kevin Costner. They had to build a long skinny platform between the rows so that they could shoot Costner walking down the rows, hearing The Voice say, "If you build it, he will come." (BTW, "he" is not Shoeless Joe in the movie, but John Kinsella, Ray's father, who in the plot had died while he and his then-college age son were estranged, as you'll recall if you've seen the movie.)
The place is maintained by donations and concession sales only. It is well worth a donation, and a visit if the opportunity presents itself.
All very cool...a great day trip from Chicago...check out the website at: www.fodmoviesite.com
posted by John Barry at 7/08/2006 11:31:00 PM
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