Yesterday, major league baseball played an official game at the Dyersville, Iowa, location where the 1989 movie Field of Dreams was made. It wasn’t on the same field, but a new one connected to it (with a conjoining corn field) that was constructed to major league dimensions, and with seating for 6,000. Before the game, they have a lovely ceremony that featured Kevin Costner, who also went to the announcing booth later to talk about the movie with the sportscasters. Very thoughtfully, he said that he gets too much credit for the movie and started praising all those who made the film what it was, started with Phil Alden Robinson, who wrote the screenplay (based on W.P. Kinsella’s wonderful novel Shoeless Joe) and directed the movie. I’ll post the video of the pregame show below. And there's a remarkable bonus P.S. after that which will boggle you. Honest. If you don't want to read any of this or watch the video, at least jump to that. But first, a few comments about the documentary that Fox Sports made about constructing this field of dreams and the background on the making of the movie itself. Called If You Build It: 30 Years of “Field of Dreams,” it’s been repeated several times on the FoxSports1 channel since it premiered over the week, and is next scheduled tonight at 10 PM on the channel (which is 400 in my West L.A. Spectrum guide). The documentary is really well done, though I had a rough time watching it for a very personal reason – I came inches from being hired to do the unit publicity on the movie, but in the end wasn’t hired. I had read several novels by W.P. Kinsella, including Shoeless Joe, and when I read that they were making a movie of it, I was so anxious to work on it. Over a year in advance I tracked down who the executive producer was, a fellow named Brian Frankish, and wrote him. It was much too early to even think of hiring the publicist who’s usually one of the last crew members hired. But we stayed in touch, and six months later (still way early) he had me come in to his office at Universal Pictures to talk. It went so well, and set up another meeting to talk with Phil Robinson. Still far, far in advance of the movie production, but he wanted us to meet. That meeting with Phil went very well. (We later became friendly through the Writers Guild, and when I reminded him that I was that guy who interviewed with him SO early to do the P.R. on Field of Dreams, he actually remembered it.) Since the movie’s story centers around Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Chicago White Sox (nicknamed the “Black Sox” for throwing the World Series), I brought along my Nelson Fox autographed-model baseball glove and my Luis Aparicio autographed “To Bobby, best wishes") baseball – both the former double-play combination for the White Sox and now in the Hall of Fame. We talked a very long time and a range of subjects, including Kinsella’s other novels. (We disagreed about The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, a novel about the most monumentally epic game ever played, where quite literally the heavens opened.) And when I left, it was pretty clear that I had a big leg up on being hired. But it was still much too early. Nothing was settled. And then months later, Brian Frankish called me to say he’d been replaced as producer. He was being kept on the film as executive producer, but since it was the producer who hires the unit publicist, the job was no longer certain because the new producers had their favorite publicist, and the job was down to that person and me. It wasn’t hard to guess what would happen. And that’s what happened, and I didn’t get the job. I never much liked unit publicity, but I really anxiously wanted that job. But I was still so glad that the movie was being made, because I loved the novel. It’s always a bit bittersweet watching the movie, but since it’s so wonderful that transcends all, and it’s a total joy. Watching the “making of” documentary was a bit tougher for the “This nearly was mine” aspect. However, 30 years have passed, and it's a fond memory just to have crossed paths with it all. (As for "memory," Phil Robison corrected me on some of my recollections that I wrote about in the first draft of this that I posted. Since he was right there in the center of it all, I defer to his recollections on everything here and have made some edits.) One story that I do remember different from what was told in the documentary is one I'm absolutely sure of -- because I got it years ago...from Phil Robinson. The way the producer told the story about the title of the film changing from Shoeless Joe and becoming Field of Dreams made it seem like he was the one more involved and who gave the news to novelist Kinsella about the change. But while very close to the way Phil tells it, his is a bit different and with much more detail, indeed details that make it clear his version and involvement are the true one. As Phil relates the story, Universal insisted that they wouldn’t release the movie as Shoeless Joe because tests showed that people thought the movie was about a homeless guy. Instead, they gave the filmmakers a long list of other titles to choose from. (The producer said that the studio just gave them the title, here, it's Field of Dreams.) Phil said that the long list of possible titles was really terrible, including one that pretty much gave away the ending. There was only one title that was passable, Field of Dreams, and it one was the filmmakers picked. However, the only thing Phil insisted – because he had built up such a good relationship with W.P. Kinsella by then, adapting his novel – was that he be the one to break the news to him. (Not the producer doing so, as he said.) For all these reasons, though the two are close, that’s why I believe that Phil’s version is the correct one. He had the long relationship with the author. Anyway, he called Kinsella and told him that unfortunately the studio was making them change the title of the movie, and it wouldn't be called Shoeless Joe, like his book. But Kinsella wasn’t bothered, “That’s okay,” he said, “I never liked that title anyway. The publisher insisted on it.” Relieved, Phil asked him what his own title for the novel was. Kinsella answered, “Dream Field.” Brian Frankish also told me a funnier version of the story about the corn that they described in the documentary. They tell the tale well, but don’t have the punch line. There had been a massive drought in Iowa that summer, and corn wasn’t growing anywhere. And without high corn, there was no movie. Production was nearing and the filmmakers didn’t know what to do. Finally, they got the advice about trucking in thousands of gallons of water, and the corn grew – really high. The addendum to this is that someone on the film said to a local farmer how it was a shame they weren’t able to get their corn to grow that summer like they had at the film location. “Hey,” the guy said, “you spent hundreds of thousands of dollars piping in all that water because you’re Hollywood and could do that! We couldn’t. We’re farmers.” Anyway, the documentary is done very well. My personal hesitancies and hiccups aside, it’s really worth watching, if you can track it down On Demand or on a FoxSports1 repeat. As for that pregame ceremony with Kevin Costner, here’s the video. It’s about nine minutes long, and admittedly a little corny, but I found it very well done, appropriate to the film, and actually a bit moving at a few points. And if you loved the movie, you likely will think so, too. In the announcer’s booth later during the game, Costner talked about how he didn’t know how the program ceremony would go, but when he heard “that great music” playing, he said he just let it take over and was surprised that it was all as moving as it was. And this is the great P.S. that I mentioned at the beginning. And it wasn't referenced on the broadcast, because I suspect they didn't know at the time. It was probably only discovered by statisticians later. The game -- played to honor the movie Field of Dreams, based on the novel Shoeless Joe -- was won in the bottom of the ninth inning when Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox, down 8-7 after giving up four runs in the top of the inning, hit a two run home run -- into the corn field! -- to win the game. And the scoreboard exploded with fireworks. The first "exploding scoreboard" in the major leagues having been built by Bill Veeck when he owned the Chicago White Sox. But believe it or not, that's not the point. This is the point -- Throughout both teams' history playing against each other over a few thousand games, the Chicago White Sox have beaten the New York Yankees with a last-inning, game-winning home run 15 times. The first time it was done, the game-winning home run was hit by...Shoeless Joe Jackson.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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