It’s As If Shoeless Joe Scripted Field Of Dreams Game

Shoeless Joe Jackson must have rolled in his grave when White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson ripped a walk-off home run to beat the Yankees 9-8 in the Field of Dreams game. Hollywood’s writers for Redford's “The Natural” could not have scripted it better as Anderson joyfully rounded the bases in the converted Iowa cornfield, 8K fans screamed in delight & fireworks burst brilliantly over the centerfield scoreboard.

This is what sports are supposed to be like … and, as depicted in the iconic 1989 Kevin Costner movie. The Chicago players dancing at home plate to greet the hero, while the Yanks’ pitcher, Zack Britton, walked off the field slowly with head hanging. “The games never over ‘til it’s over,” Anderson told The Athletic as if to conjure up the ghost of Yogi Berra as well as Shoeless Joe. According to Fox News, the “well-kept movie set was steps away from the stadium built to hold 8K fans & designed to resemble Chicago’s old Comiskey Park.

Lest we forget, Shoeless Joe was the key subject in another movie “Eight Men Out” that depicted how a handful of players, including Jackson, were forever banned from baseball for allegedly helping to fix the 1919 World Series. Never mind that Jackson was found INNOCENT at the conspiracy trial, underpaid by a miserly, vindictive Comiskey & set a record by getting 12 hits in the series he supposedly gas-lighted. Jackson, who died in 1951, went on to play for & manage semi-pro teams in various Southern towns under an assumed name “For the Love of the Game,” another Costner movie. In fact, the Field of Dreams pre-game had Sox & Yankee players walking onto the diamond from the cornfield beyond just like in the movie. If only today’s multi-millionaire players would still play, like Shoeless Joe, for the love of their lives instead of selling out to the almighty buck Joe was accused of thinking about.

Davd Soul