1. Field of Dreams
Produced in 1989, the best of all the baseball movies, Field of Dreams stars Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, Burt Lancaster and James Earl Jones in an adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 book, “Shoeless Joe.”
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Like the book, it plays off the 1919 Black Sox scandal. At its heart, though, Field of Dreams is memorable as the consummate “fathers and sons’ story. It focuses on the seemingly irrational desire of Roy Kinsella, a relatively poor Iowa corn farmer, to plow up large portions of his land to build a baseball field in the middle of nowhere.
In the process, Kinsella nearly puts his family into bankruptcy. His labors are eventually rewarded, however, when the field attracts the attention of the spirits of the long-disgraced Black Sox who – invisible to the skeptical neighbors – make it their own playing field.
In time Kinsella’s own long-dead father, a one-time bit ballplayer, joins them on the field, leading to a memorable reunion in which Kinsella/Costner is allowed to utter one of those bonding lines that define America: “Hey dad, wanna have a catch?”
Made for $15 million, which I consider the best of all the baseball movies, the film grossed nearly $85 million.
The ballfield still stands today in Dyersville, Ia.; in fact, it has become both a tourist attraction and a campground where youth baseball teams from around the country can come to play a game…or just have a catch with their dads.