Word: shoelessness
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Costner defers credit for the film's success to Robinson: "He's the star of Field of Dreams." But there are moments the star is proud to claim. "When Ray is throwing to Shoeless Joe, he gets so excited that he glances back to the house to see if his wife is looking. When Ray is walking toward his dad, picking at his hand, and, realizing that his dad is doing the same thing, he quickly puts his hands down. And his run to the mound isn't a completely athletic run. It's a little funny. There's some...
...hero of Damn Yankees was a pennant-winning natural named Shoeless Joe Hardy. The hero of Phil Alden Robinson's Field of Dreams is a farmer (Kevin Costner) who dreams of bringing Shoeless Joe Jackson back to earth for one more game. The great outfielder may have helped throw the 1919 World Series, but the farmer idolizes him and his Black Sox teammates for their innocence! So with the help of his trusting wife (Amy Madigan) and a crusty black author (James Earl Jones) who doesn't mind that all the old major-leaguers were white, he plows down...
Think it's unfair? Tell that to "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, one of baseball's greatest hitters, who was banned from the game after the 1918 Black Sox Scandal. Or Orlando Cepeda, a sure Hall of Famer--until he went to jail for drug possession...
...this conspiring occurs at a time when baseball was Chicago's only religion. When kids would worship the hitting of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney) or the sparkling fielding of Buck Weaver (John Cusack) and Hap Felsch (Charlie Sheen). What Sayles tries to create in Eight Men Out is a struggle between the innocence of baseball and the outside forces that try to smear baseball's image. Such a struggle leads to tragic consequences...
...consequence of the act was so dire -- permanent banishment from baseball -- in comparison with the paltry rewards (a few thousand dollars to each man) imparted ironic force to the story. And then there were the poignant sidebars: the little boy crying "Say it ain't so, Joe," as Shoeless Joe Jackson, greatest of the team's several great players, emerged from the grand-jury room one day; the sports-page paragraph that almost annually recounted Buck Weaver's latest pathetic attempt to clear his name (he was not part of the conspiracy but knew about it, failed to report...