People Will Come, Ray — Baseball Bench Coach

A little over a week ago, actor James Earl Jones passed away at age 93. His authoritative voice boomed through most of his roles in movies, voice overs, and storytelling. I will always remember these words: “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.” His role as Terence Mann in the movie “Field of Dreams” voiced themes of baseball that have indeed resounded throughout my life. I still sob watching “Field of Dreams” time after time. I will miss James Earl Jones.

The movie was based on W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe”. The novel tells the story of Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer, struggling with the memories of his relationship with his late Dad, John Kinsella, a faithful baseball fan. One day Ray hears a voice, “If you build it, he will come”. With the loving support of his wife Annie and daughter Karin, Ray begins to build a ballpark. Along the way, we discover that a rift between Ray and his Dad was caused by his Dad’s devotion to the 1919 White Sox and their star player, Shoeless Joe Jackson. At the age of fourteen, Ray challenged that loyalty, telling his Dad that Shoeless Joe was a criminal. After that, Ray and his Dad never played catch again, something Ray deeply regrets. As Ray’s new ballpark begins to take shape, mystical ballplayers begin to appear and play games, first Shoeless Joe and then seven others, all of whom were banned from baseball in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.

The story of the Black Sox Scandal actually begins the year before, 1918, in a way that is frighteningly similar to our COVID years this decade. In 1918 the Spanish Flu pandemic swept across the world. We lost an estimated 5 million people worldwide and 675,000 in the U.S. alone. There were four waves of the Spanish flu, the first beginning in the spring of 1918. The War Department required that the baseball season end by September 1st and the World Series by September 15th. The Red Sox defeated the Cubs 4 games to 2. Over the next several weeks, a second wave of the Spanish flu hit the U.S., especially in the metropolitan areas of Boston and Chicago. A third wave of the Spanish flu set in the next year, 1919. Attendance was down at ballparks across the country. At the time, players coveted shares of postseason winnings to add to their mostly average salaries, but with diminishing attendance, those shares would be taking a hit.

Betting on baseball was rampant during this era. Gamblers would gather just outside the outfield fence at many ballparks, offering outfielders money for misplaying a fly ball. As the White Sox headed toward clinching the AL pennant in September 1919, some of the players were concerned about not getting much of a payday in the World Series. There were two factions in the Sox clubhouse, the “Clean Sox” players who didn’t want to participate in any side action, and a second faction that reached out to a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein. A meeting with the syndicate was set up on September 21 in New York to discuss a fix of the upcoming Series. Six players attended the meeting, each of whom were banned from baseball in the aftermath. One player who attended, Buck Weaver, never received any money but still was banned for not reporting the fix, and another player, Fred McMullin, who wasn’t at the meeting but heard about it and threatened to squeal if he didn’t get a payoff, was banned as well. The banned players also included Sox star outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson, who didn’t attend the New York meeting and whose actual involvement is disputed.

The 1919 World Series, a 9-game format, featured the upstart NL Cincinnati Reds against the heavily favored White Sox. Sox star pitcher, Red Faber, one of the Clean Sox, came down with the flu prior to the Series and never pitched. Some of his starts went to pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams, who were on the take. Cicotte, the Game 1 starter, hit the Reds leadoff batter, a signal to the gambling syndicate the fix was on. With the Reds up 4 games to 1, there was concern among the players that the gamblers were reneging on payment. The Sox won Games 6 and 7. Prior to Game 8, there were mentions of threats of violence against White Sox players and family. Lefty Williams lost Game 8, his third loss of the Series, and the Reds won the Series 5 games to 3. In October 1920 eight Sox players and five gamblers were indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago on nine counts of conspiracy to defraud. The case went to trial in July 1921, and all eight players were acquitted. Nevertheless, MLB’s first Commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was hired by the owners to clean up the game, banned the eight players from baseball.

The 1982 novel captured a theme that I didn’t clearly remember in the movie. The Kinsella family despised the Yankees, a notion to which many baseball fans can relate. The Yankees were the scheduled opponents of the White Sox in the “Field of Dreams” game scheduled for the 2020 season which was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID. Now I see why the Yankees were to be in that first game. We all have “that team” to root against. For me and most NL fans, it’s the Dodgers. For many AL fans, especially those of the Red Sox, the Indians, and even comically, the Washington Senators in the Broadway musical, “Damn Yankees”, that means the Yankees. The Pinstripes nowadays might have finally relinquished its American League hatred crown to the Houston Astros.

The part of Ray Kinsella in the movie is played by Kevin Costner. At the end of the movie, James Earl Jones, as Terence Mann, comforts Ray as they look out toward the field that Ray has painstakingly built: “This field, this game – it’s part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be good again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.” Indeed, the MLB has hosted two games at the Dyersville, Iowa site to honor the movie and baseball’s past. In the inaugural game in August 2021, the White Sox defeated those damn Yankees 9-8 in memorable fashion with a moonstruck home run by Chicago shortstop Tim Anderson. In the 2022 season the Cubs defeated the Reds, 4-2. The hope for MLB is that more games are to come once further renovations are made at the ballpark.

For me baseball has always been about memories. My favorite scene in the “Field of Dreams” movie is when Ray Kinsella got his wish, to play catch with the catcher, his Dad, who finally showed up to play at the Iowa ballpark. When I was growing up I built my own little ballpark in our backyard where my Dad and I would play catch. One night my pitch sunk and badly hurt his shin, an injury he didn’t tell me about until much later in life. It was our last night of catch together. In my own idyllic “field of dreams”, I too wish for one last catch. Somehow, filling my days with baseball history brings his memory to life.

People will come, Ray.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach