After a year-long wait due to the pandemic, one of major league baseball’s most anticipated games took place last week. The game between the Yankees and the White Sox was presented a stone’s throw from the site where the film was shot Until the end of the dream (Field of Dreams) in Dyersville, Iowa.
A trip back in time will allow baseball fans who are not movie buffs to better understand the theme of the game based on the film first screened in 1989, starring legendary actor Kevin Costner.
This cinematic masterpiece tells the story of a farmer (Costner) who realizes his dream by erecting a baseball diamond in his cornfield. A fantastic place from which the ghosts of old baseball legends will emerge.
Shoeless Joe Jackson
First Shoeless Joe Jackson and some of his teammates dubbed the Black Sox from Chicago who were banned from baseball after being convicted of betting to intentionally cause their team to lose the World Series in 1919.
In my opinion, major league baseball is thus associating with players who have been banned for life from major league baseball while the greatest hitter of all time, Pete Rose, is still suspended for betting on games without ever intentionally lose his team.
It is illogical to believe that Rose, with his 4,256 hits, cannot be eligible to be immortalized in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
From magic
Let’s go back to this magical event in Iowa that undoubtedly revived baseball fever among fans, many of whom had turned their backs on the sport since the 1994 strike.
In the film, actor Ray Liotta, who played the role of Shoeless Joe Jackson, was seen coming out of the cornfield to play a game.
We will often see the sequence that took place last week in front of 8,000 fans in a country stadium and a record number of viewers for many years.
In fact, it was the highest ratings for a regular game since the 2005 season.
Wearing the Yankees uniform from the 1919 edition, one of the biggest players in major league baseball, Aaron Judge, 6-foot-7, 275 pounds, pushes the corn to gain access to the field from the outfield.
The crowd jumped to their feet to applaud him, as did the other Yankees and White Sox players who followed.
In front of my television, I joined in the concert of applause.
It was just perfect. The arrival of the players on the field, the old scoreboard rising in the cornfield, the spectacular sunset worthy of Iowa and balls landing in the ears of corn, including that of Tim Anderson who gives the White Sox the victory at the end of the ninth inning. The only problem, Anderson who reveals in a post-game interview that he has never seen the film Field of Dreams !
Heaven
In the classic movie Les boys, the famous quote “the hardness of the mind” is part of our folklore.
This year, during the pre-game ceremonies, Kevin Costner repeated one of the catchphrases: “Are we in heaven? the crowd completed the quote: “No, we’re in Iowa.”
The film is summed up with the main quote from the film: “Build a stadium and they will come. »
Yes, Major League Baseball built a stadium and players and people came.
The series race
The end of the season in major league baseball promises to be exciting. Who knew the Giants would top their division standings ahead of the Dodgers and Padres?
Again this year, the Tampa Bay Rays, who operate with a modest payroll, are waging a merciless battle against the wealthy Yankees and Red Sox.
For a season and a half, the Blue Jays have shown exemplary resilience by playing their home games away from Rogers Center due to COVID-19. Galvanized by the approximately 15,000 spectators who are as loud as 50,000, they have been spectacular since their return to Toronto three weeks ago.
And Montreal?
The precarious situation in Tampa Bay has not changed. Kevin Cash’s team stacks up victories and aspires to the playoffs in front of bare bleachers. Montreal investors must continue their efforts to bring baseball back to Montreal.
As in the film, they must go “to the end of the dream”.