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Soon, Costner is plowing over his a portion of his corn field to build a baseball field. His neighbors think he's nuts, and so does his wife, at least until the ghosts of old-time baseball players magically start showing up on the field. They're the Chicago "Black Sox" players that took money from gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series. The scandal nearly destroyed baseball, but Hollywood is liberal, so all is forgiven. They're swell guys now.
But the field voice isn't done with Costner. He tells him to track down legendary (but fictional) counter-culture writer James Earl Jones. Jones, too, thinks Costner is a nutcase, but calms down after the latter produces two free tickets to a Boston Red Sox game. This leads to an improbable road trip for Costner and Jones to Minnesota, where they meet the ghost of small-time baseball player Moonlight Graham, both as a young adult (Frank Whaley) and as a saintly doctor (Burt Lancaster, in his final feature film).
Costner, Jones, and Moonlight Graham return to Iowa, but nostalgic baseball bliss is interrupted by financial troubles. It seems that the two acres of the farm devoted to the field are enough to force the homestead into foreclosure. Fortunately, Gaby Hoffman, who as a six year old knows such things, asserts that tourists will come and pay to presumably watch ghosts play baseball. Glad that's settled, and once Costner is reunited with the young man ghost of his estranged dad, nothing interferes with the seamless feel-good ending.
How others will see it. This All-American tall tale will cause cynics to roll their eyes, but it was a big box office hit, and it also picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Bogus as the story may have been, it delivered exactly what audiences wanted. And I, for one, am thankful that people who obey field voices hear them say, "If you build it, he will come," instead of, "They all must die!" Because then we'd be talking about a different kind of movie, which probably wouldn't have starred Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones.
How I felt about it. While it is hardly an original observation, it is ironical that James Earl Jones beams with joy upon seeing the ghosts of baseball players from an era when blacks weren't allowed to play, and in fact, the ghost players appear to be all white. But Field of Dreams is a revisionist fantasy in which no one has a racist thought, and you, the audience, aren't expected to have any either.
What does Field of Dreams represent? It is one of a great many Hollywood films in which an ordinary man becomes someone of some importance. Costner changes from a small-town farmer into the groundskeeper for baseball's ghost league. And most importantly, he learns something along the way. Always trust the voices in your head, since they have your best interests at heart (warning: this is not true in real life). Never mind that the ghosts have plenty of other baseball fields they can use. And the ones in San Diego are good to go year 'round. Try playing baseball in Iowa in January.