Wulf: Creating a new field of dreams for Shoeless Joe in Greenville
From SABR member Steve Wulf at ESPN.com on November 10, 2017:
“If you build it, he will come.”
Joshua Barrow did not hear a voice telling him to do that. He did not plow under a corn crop or kidnap a famous writer. And he is too young to be played by Kevin Costner.
But the high school sophomore and Life Scout (Troop 521) is doing something that Ray Kinsella did in the 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe” and the 1989 movie it inspired, “Field of Dreams.” He is helping to revive the ghost of perhaps the greatest player not in the baseball Hall of Fame. He is creating a field of dreams for Shoeless Joe Jackson.
The diamond already lies in the shadow of the old Brandon Mill in West Greenville, and it’s where Jackson himself played for the textile mill before he broke in with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1908. Joshua’s ambition is more based in reality than Ray’s was. While the character played by Kevin Costner in the movie was trying to “ease his pain,” the 15-year-old wants to earn his Eagle Scout badge by giving something back to his community.
Read the full article here: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21328694
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Originally published: November 17, 2017. Last Updated: November 17, 2017.