A visit to Heaven (aka Dyersville, Iowa)

I, like any other true baseball fan who has seen Field of Dreams at least a dozen times, had always wanted to visit the actual movie site.  As you can see from the map below the field is located in Dyersville, Iowa which is in the middle of nowhere even by Midwest standards.

Click here to see a map of Butt F**k Nowhere, Iowa

Of course  for anyone who doesn't live in the Midwest traveling that far only to visit the movie site for a couple of hours is pretty crazy.  I had been waiting for years to have an excuse to visit the field and this year I finally had one; ASU football.  As it turns out my alma mater was playing UW in Madison, WI and after a quick Google Maps check I found that Madison is only a 2-2.5 hour drive from Dyersville.

I think most people would agree there is one person they would want to visit THE Field of Dreams with, their dad.  I was able to convince my dad to come to Madison with me and told him we would be seeing the ASU vs. UW game along with a Packers vs. Bills game at Lambeau on Sunday.  My goal was to get in the car on the Friday before the ASU game and just start driving, hoping that my dad wouldn't figure out we were driving to the movie site until we arrived.  I succeeded in keeping the secret until we had driven about an hour outside of Madison and starting seeing corn fields along with mileage signs to Iowa.  It didn't take long for him to figure it out from there.

After a tedious 2.5 hour drive, the last 15 minutes of which was on dirt roads, we finally arrived at the field.  The first thing you see when driving up is the gift shop.  While I was disappointed to see the movie site had been overly commercialized I was excited to have the opportunity to but a full size Louisville Slugger Field of Dreams baseball bat.  

While I didn't use the line "You wanna have a catch", I did get my dad to join me in the outfield to throw the ball around with a couple of gloves I snuck into my luggage.  When we first arrived there were a few locals throwing batting practice to each other so we had to stay out of the infield and keep our eyes open for balls flying our direction.  These guys were a little annoying because they were monopolizing the field and didn't seem to want anyone else to join their BP session.  You could tell they were regulars because they all had on Field of Dreams jersey's with hand written numbers on the back.  As you can see, these guys will never be mistaken for the 1919 White Sox or any of the other ghosts.

After about half an hour these dbags left for the day which left only about five people on the property.  After a few photo obligatory photo opps...

...it was time for the grand finale; trying to hit a ball into the corn field with my newly purchased Louisville Slugger.  Unfortunately my dad has even less control than Wil Ledezma (props to anyone who remembers him).  After about 10 minutes of waiting for good pitches and dribbling grounders to short I managed to hit one out.  I should mention that the field is only about 300 ft to left field and the ball MAY have been a little bit foul, but in my mind it was the greatest hit since Garvey.  

As you hopefully noticed I wore my Gaslamp Ball shirt to the field.  My hope was that some of the field's magical powers would rub off on the shirt and thus transfer to the Friars. I also thought about taking some dirt from the field and trowing it onto the warning track at Petco, but then I remembered I've never been thrown out of a Padres game and I'm not sure the security guards would appreciate my gesture.  I noticed a few Cubs fans at the field as well, but I'm thinking not even some good Field of Dreams mojo can help them against the Friar next week.  As of me writing this the Padres are 3-4 since my visit, but if they manage to make it to the playoffs I'm taking full credit.

Time to finish off the BEST. SEASON. EVAR.

GO PADRES!