The Chris Moeller Archives

The man who built it

The gentleman who wrote Shoeless Joe died on Friday. W.P. Kinsella was 81. He was from Canada, educated at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and his fiction novels and short stories-- that I was familiar with, anyway-- were all about baseball or they were dramatic tales set in Native American communities in Canada. I met him at a book signing in West Des Moines when I was in college, and he signed my copy of the short story collection that included the short upon which Shoeless Joe was based, Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa. I asked him to inscribe it "Go the Distance," a reference to the book and the extraordinary film that came later, Field of Dreams, and he agreed. The next two people in line followed my lead and asked him to inscribe the same. I was so proud.

Bill Kinsella loved the movie Phil Alden Robinson made based on his work. We all do. It's the most important piece of pop culture in our state's history, and I think plays just as well away from home. I grew up on a farm where we had a baseball field built into our backyard too. My father didn't carve out a diamond infield or anything like that, but there was a fenced backstop and the edge of the cornfield marked a home run. Nearly one hundred Moellers gathered for a family reunion at our farm in the summer of 1992, and one of the second cousins from Southern California remarked to her grandmother, "This is just like the Field of Dreams." The movie was only three years old at that time. The grandmother, now 102, appeared by video at this summer's family reunion near Yellowstone National Park, and recalled the anecdote.

My wife and I were gathered with family on Friday, and the topic of Field of Dreams came up, even though we were all unaware of Kinsella's passing. I told my wife, who immigrated from Kenya eight years, you have to see this movie. There are people in this world that associate it with your husband.

Upon his death, I'm grateful for what Kinsella did for Iowa, for my circle of friends and family, and also, of course, the new life and the new legacy that he gave the Eight-- Weaver, Cicotte, Risberg, Felsch, Gandil, Williams, McMullin, and Jackson. 

posted by CM @ 8:07 PM