If you write it, they will come... and others will get the credit

The movie Field of Dreams was inspired by the book Shoeless Joe, written by the late great Canadian author W.P. Kinsella. 

If you watched MLB's much-hyped Field of Dreams game last Thursday, which dramatically began with Kevin Costner – who starred in the beloved 1989 film – emerging from a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa followed by members of the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox dressed in throwback jerseys, it seemed as though careful attention was paid to getting the right look and feel down to the last detail. If you missed it, check the clip below. 

During the game, Costner swung by the booth to sit in with play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and analyst John Smoltz to fondly recall his experience making the film. While Buck and Smoltz gushed about Costner's performance as the Iowa farmer who built a baseball diamond in his cornfield after hearing a ghostly voice saying "If you build it, he will come," Costner adhered to the longstanding baseball tradition of sharing credit for a good result whenever near a live microphone and told the folks at home that Field of Dreams truly was a team effort. 

Costner explained that shooting the film wouldn't have been such a success without the exemplary work of his fellow cast members – namely Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta and Burt Lancaster – as well as producers Larry & Charles Gordon and of course, director Phil Robertson who wrote the terrific script. It seemed like the only person Costner neglected to namecheck was W.P. Kinsella, the Edmonton-born author whose best-selling debut novel "Shoeless Joe" published in 1982 was the original inspiration for the movie. 

Of course, it's possible that Kinsella's name never came up during the broadcast because neither Costner nor his booth buddies Buck and Smoltz had ever read the book. And perhaps it never occurred to any of the on-field reporters Ken Rosenthal and Ken Verducci, nor the Fox Sports analysts Alex Rodriguez and David "Big Papi" Ortiz to dig a little deeper into the Field of Dreams origin story. Yet still, even if Costner had somehow forgotten the real source of all the movie's quotable passages, the fact that the name of his character in the film was 'Ray Kinsella' should've been a helpful reminder that a popular Canadian writer with the same surname might be worth mentioning. After all, it was Kinsella who came up with the whole Field of Dreams concept they were now celebrating. 

Perhaps they just couldn't bring themselves to publicly admit that this moment, so quintessentially American, was initially set in motion by a Canadian. No doubt voicing such a heretical notion would've caused A-Rod to spit out his apple pie hot dog all over Guy Fieri's red 1968 Camaro. But it's all true. Had the then 41-year old baseball-nut Kinsella not gone to Iowa City and attended the Iowa Writer's Workshop in pursuit of his masters degree at the University of Iowa back in 1976, there would be no Field of Dreams movie and no nationally televised MLB Field of Dreams game in an Iowa cornfield. 

It's not like Kinsella needed to hear any acknowledgement during the live broadcast – he died back in 2016 at the age of 81. From all reports, Kinsella really liked the film adaptation of his book even though his cameo appearance as part of the crowd in the PTA scene was cut from the final version. He probably would've also enjoyed seeing the Field of Dreams game and all the hoopla surrounding the event – $3.000 a seat? Hilarious! Kinsella genuinely loved baseball and all the mythology and mysterious behind-the-scenes machinations that came with it which his writing so clearly conveyed. 

He delved deep into the real life details of the people who played the game, fascinated by not only the record smashing stars but also those mostly forgotten characters who may have only been around for a cup of coffee. Take a guy like New York Giants right fielder Archibald "Moonlight" Graham who played just a single inning in a major league game on June 29, 1905. Kinsella recognized that even though Graham never got a chance at bat, there was something special about Graham's story which became an important part of the book, Shoeless Joe and a crucial aspect of the movie Field of Dreams, thanks in part to Burt Lancaster's poignant performance which turned out to be his last major screen role.  

After Shoeless Joe came out in 1982, Kinsella continued to explore different aspects of the game in various novels and short stories which consistently carried profound statements on the human condition. Check out 1985's The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, 1991's Box Socials, 1995's Go The Distance: Baseball Stories and Dixon Cornbelt League, 1998's Magic Time, 2000's Japanese Baseball and Other Stories, 2009's The Thrill Of The Grass and 2011's Butterfly Winter. He also found time to edit the 1997 collection Diamonds Forever: Reflections from the Field, the Dugout & the Bleachers and co-write the biography Ichiro Dreams: Ichiro Suzuki and the Seattle Mariners in 2002.     

In light of Shoeless Joe's themes of dreams deferred and redemption it would've been nice to see a tip of the cap to Kinsella. What? You never heard of him? William Patrick Kinsella was that crazy Canuck who loved baseball but never got a chance to play in a major league game. They made a Hollywood movie outta one of his books and his lone on-screen appearance wound up on the cutting room floor. Major League Baseball even staged a Field of Dreams game on network television – which turned out to be the most viewed regular season game since 2005 – and never once mentioned his name during the broadcast. Yet somehow, that Kinsella still managed to leave an indelible mark on America's national pastime for generations to come. 

For further reading, check out William Steele's well-researched 2019 biography Going The Distance: The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella (Douglas & McIntyre).