Field of Dreams<\/i>, the movie based on W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe<\/i> came out when I was in high school. I loved the book, and I loved the movie. It’s not my favorite baseball book. It’s not my favorite baseball movie–that would be The Natural<\/i>. I would place Field of Dreams<\/i> in the top five, though. It’s a touching story of the timeless mythicism of baseball, and the film’s final scenes always<\/i> choke me up.<\/p>\n
One of the characters in the film, “Moonlight” Graham, was played by Burt Lancaster in one of his final roles. Moonlight Graham was a small-town doctor the story’s protagonist goes in search of–he had played in a single game many years before, never got to bat, never got to field. Graham’s dreams of baseball glory amounted to a nameless cameo.<\/p>\n
Well, the story of Moonlight Graham is true.<\/a> And the 100th-anniversary of his single baseball appearance comes later this week.<\/p>\n \nHis big league career lasted all of one game, a few fleeting moments in right field.<\/p>\n He stood out there on a summer afternoon so long ago, on a patch of grass since paved over in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n Yet many folks are certain Moonlight Graham was a made-up character from a movie, not a real-life ballplayer for the New York Giants.<\/p>\n “‘Field of Dreams’ was before my time,” said Willie Mays, the greatest Giant of them all. “That was a real thing? How come nobody told me?”<\/p>\n Yet the tale is true, at least most of it. Because on June 29, 1905–exactly 100 years ago on Wednesday–Archibald Wright Graham made his lone appearance in the majors.<\/p>\n He never got to hit. Instead, he was left on deck. A late substitute in a lopsided 11-1 win, he played only two innings and there’s no proof he ever touched the ball.<\/p>\n “Graham went to right field for New York” was his only mention in the local Evening Telegram’s play-by-play account. And, just that fast, the 28-year-old rookie described in the sporting press as being “quick as a flash of moonlight” was gone.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Who’d have thought?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Field of Dreams, the movie based on W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe came out when I was in high school. I loved the book, and I loved the movie. It’s not my favorite baseball book. It’s not my favorite baseball movie–that would be The Natural. I would place Field of Dreams in the top five,Continue reading “On Moonlight Graham”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4081,975],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-moonlight-graham","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}