My personal Field of Dreams

Tonight, Major League Baseball returns to Dyersville, Iowa, for the Field of Dreams Game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins. It’s fantastic that the event has returned, as the 1989 film is one of my favorites and has inspired memories and reflections of my own.

Childhood memories

One summer day in the early 2000s, my oldest brother had the impulse to build a baseball field. So, he tied the closest thing we had to a steel drag mat to our dad’s ancient Subaru Leone (I think that was the car) from the 80s and drove it around the empty acre of dirt next to the house.

While he was in the car, my job as the youngest brother was to wander the field and pick up as many large rocks as I could carry in my shirt and use them to weigh down a line of boards flat on the ground that served as our outfield fence. We then created a backstop by propping up a chain-link fence on three poles, and tried to compile a mound of dirt as best we could to pitch from.

Despite a total lack of measuring that left us with a tiny right field—and an abundance of weeds, rocks, Chico bushes, and ankle-twisting rodent tunnels—it was our own Field of Dreams.

It wasn’t heaven, but it was perfect.

I have so many memories of taking batting practice out there with my brothers and the slog of tracking down every ball we hit, only to inevitably lose one somehow (legend says there are still baseballs out there to this day). It also served as our annual home run derby venue, where we obliterated the surplus of rotten apples that fell off our trees. I also spent many years using an old wooden shovel handle to smack rocks I tossed up to myself to work on my hand-eye coordination while my dog Misty chased them.

That field helped forge my love of the game, and inspired so many pursuits in baseball, including writing for Purple Row.

Baseball marks the time

I recently watched Field of Dreams on a whim in preparation for the game, and one of the moments that always stands out is the monologue by James Earl Jones’s character, Terrance Mann.

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again.”

Baseball has always been a significant part of my life. My dad loved the game and passed that on to my three brothers and me. The oldest and I became the fanatics and played the game, while the other two became casual enjoyers of the sport.

The sport is always a constant through the good times and the bad. When my dad first learned of his cancer diagnosis in 2024, Rockies baseball helped him endure that time. After he passed, baseball has continued to serve as a healing salve for me.

To me, the essence of the speech in the movie is that baseball is about hope and believing that things can be better than they were yesterday. It stands as a constant testament to the inherent childlike simplicity of throwing, hitting, and catching a ball. Baseball is what dreams are made of.

It’s a game that can heal people, giving them a sense of community and the courage to believe. The best adage in sports is that there is “always next year.” Seems like every year, no matter how foolish it may be, I enter a Rockies season with a decent amount of optimism that things could be better. I see others who share that same sentiment time and time again. Whether or not that is true depends on your perception, but 2026 has shown that things can still be bad, yet much better than the previous year.

If you build it

So as the Phillies and Twins step onto that cornfield diamond in Iowa tonight, I won’t just be watching a game between two major league teams. I’ll be thinking of a dusty acre, an old Subaru Leone, a wooden shovel handle, and a father who shared his love of the game. The Rockies—and baseball itself—might break our hearts now and then, but every pitch brings a chance to remember where we came from and believe in what comes next. That’s the magic of the game. It marks our time, keeps our memories alive, and always promises that tomorrow could be better.

Whether it’s played in a pristine, corn-rimmed stadium in Dyersville or on a rocky patch of dirt next to the house, baseball has a way of holding up a mirror to our lives. Tonight’s Field of Dreams game is a reminder of why we fall in love with this sport in the first place. For baseball fans—and for anyone who has ever built a field in their own backyard—sometimes the score matters a lot less than the sanctuary the game provides. There’s always next year, always next season, and always another dream waiting out in the corn.

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