There are some places you visit because they are famous, and then there are places that somehow feel familiar before you ever arrive. The film “The Field of Dreams” filmed on a farm just outside of Dyersville, Iowa, is one of those places.

I have seen the movie more times than I can count, so I knew the farmhouse, the cornfield and the little baseball diamond carved into the middle of an Iowa farm. But standing there is different. You begin to understand why a movie released in 1989 has managed to stay with people for nearly four decades. It really isn’t just a baseball story. It is a story about family, second chances, believing in something you cannot yet see and having enough faith to take the first step anyway.

The story behind the place has become almost as remarkable as the 1982 book, “Shoeless Joe,” by W.P Kinsella and the movie that was adapted from it. What began as a Hollywood movie set became a destination for generations of families and baseball fans.

Major League Baseball eventually took the idea one step further, building a ballpark among the corn and bringing big-league baseball to Iowa. In 2021, the White Sox and Yankees played the first MLB game ever held in the state, complete with players walking through the corn and Kevin Costner standing on the field. The Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds followed in 2022, and the images looked almost too perfect to be real.

Yet the part I kept thinking about had very little to do with home runs or movie history.

One of the most recognizable lines from Field of Dreams is, “If you build it, he will come.” (Which is often misremembered as “If you build it, they will come). Standing there, I found myself thinking less about who would come and more about what it takes to build in the first place. 

Before anyone comes, somebody has to believe enough to build.

That is true of a baseball field in a cornfield, but it is also true in our communities and organizations. Nearly everything worthwhile begins before there is much evidence that it will work. Someone sees a possibility that others cannot quite see yet. Someone is willing to invest time, energy and sometimes a little bit of their reputation into an idea. Leadership often means going first without knowing exactly who will follow.

But Field of Dreams also reminds us that building something isn’t ultimately about the person doing the building. Ray Kinsella, the Iowa corn farmer who built the field in the film, didn’t do so simply to have a beautiful baseball diamond in his backyard. The field became meaningful because of the people who came to it, the relationships restored there and the memories created around it.

I think the same should be true of leadership. The things we build matter most when they become places where other people can belong, contribute, grow and perhaps even find something they thought they had lost.

There is another line from the movie that may be even more powerful: “Is this heaven?”

“No. It’s Iowa.”

After spending time traveling through Iowa, I understand that line a little better now. There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about a baseball diamond surrounded by corn, a white farmhouse in the distance and people playing catch simply because they can. In a world that seems determined to make almost everything more complicated, Field of Dreams has survived because it reminds us of some very simple things — family matters, memories matter, dreams matter and sometimes playing catch with your dad matters more than almost anything else.

Baseball may be what brought people to this little patch of ground in Dyersville, but I don’t think baseball is really why they keep coming back.

They come because the place reminds us to believe in something. They come because it reminds us of people we love. And maybe they come because, every once in a while, all of us need to walk through the corn and remember that the most meaningful things we build aren’t really for ourselves at all.

To Learn More

Learn more about the Field of Dreams movie site, its history and visiting Dyersville here: https://www.fieldofdreamsmoviesite.com/

About Ron on the Road

Ron Holifield speaks to over 2,000 local government officials annually and has coffee with over 250 local government officials each year as part of his travels. If you have a cool site you think he should visit, email Ron@CivicMarketplace.com. 

NOTE: This column was written with the assistance of Melissa Valentine, senior director of operations and support at Civic Marketplace. 

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