Tim, people will come, Tim. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom… Well, actually, they’ll come for a very specific reason: to see country star Tim McGraw perform the first-ever concert at the iconic cornfield movie site built for the 1989 Kevin Costner classic Field of Dreams.
And they’ll watch the show, and it’ll be as if they’d dipped themselves in magic waters.
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Sure, the sentimentality of Field of Dreams may verge on sappiness, but filmmaker Phil Alden Robinson’s fairytale about baseball and family endures because of its purity. So too does McGraw’s one-night-only performance on August 30th in Dyersville, Iowa carry a story that lifts it above a typical live experience. After all, McGraw’s relationship with his father, the late Major League Baseball great Tug McGraw, mirrors the film’s themes of reconciliation and connection, making the Field of Dreams Movie Site a perfect setting for this special concert event.
Lovingly referred to as “The Most Magical Place on Dirt,” the Field of Dreams was built in 1988 ahead of the film’s production. Even without the Academy Award-nominated movie at its genesis, the location is striking: a verdant cornfield adjacent to a pastoral farm house, swathes mowed away to make room for a simple, heavenly baseball diamond. Crisp baselines stretch straight and true towards the Heartland green of the outfield. Sturdy, proud high mast lights stand like sentinels above it all. It’s a true picture of Americana, evoking memories of summer evenings, the worn scent of leather mitts, the invigorating crack of wood against cowhide.
One can imagine what reflections might be triggered when Tim McGraw steps onto that field — and not just because the concert is taking place on what would have been Tug McGraw’s 81st birthday. Tim may well see elements of his own life in the film’s narrative. Part spiritual quest, part redemption tale, Field of Dreams centers on Costner’s Ray Kinsella, a family man struggling to keep his farm afloat. He’s haunted by the regret of unfulfilled dreams and an estranged relationship with his late father, John. When a mysterious, disembodied voice beckons Ray, “If you build it, he will come,” he finds himself driven to build a baseball field out there in his corn — though even he isn’t sure why.
As the story unfolds, every individual who sets foot on the field is touched by its magic: Reclusive author Terence Mann (a phenomenal James Earl Jones) rekindles his love of writing, Moonlight Graham (Burt Lancaster in his final role) fulfills his rookie promise, and the disgraced baseball great Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) returns to the game that unjustly banished him. “This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray,” Mann says during a pivotal speech. “It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again.”
For Ray, that past allows him to reconcile with his father, who (spoiler) turns out to be one of the ghost players led by Shoeless Joe, finally given the chance to play with the Big Boys. The film ends with Ray and John sharing a catch, as symbolic an image of American family as there ever was.
When Tim McGraw takes the stage at the Field of Dreams Movie Site, it will be almost like he too is getting the chance to live out an unfulfilled dream. Even before he learned who his father was, McGraw played baseball. In fact, he went to college on a baseball scholarship; however, a knee injury kept him from pursuing the sport professionally. Perhaps this Field of Dreams concert will be like McGraw getting the chance to toss the ball around with his dad, too.
Tim didn’t grow up knowing he was the son of a celebrated ball player. He discovered the truth of his heritage at 11, stumbling upon his birth certificate in his mother’s closet. That would have been around 1978, three years after Tug’s All-Star season with the Mets and two before he’d help the Phillies win their first World Series. The pair connected briefly, but didn’t form a true relationship until 1985 after Tug had retired, when Tim was 18.