Field of Dreams Up for Sale
The 1989 movie "Field of Dreams" is arguably one of the best sports films of all time. It features a young Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer who turns his crops into a baseball field because a ghost told him that if he built it, "he" would come. The he (spoiler alert) is Kinsella's father. The movie ends with the two of them playing catch, in this dreamlike sequence that has choked men to tears since the release of the film.
Once the movie was done filming, all that was left was an empty baseball field, stands and a house with a beautiful porch that overlooked the diamond.
The owners of the house, Don and Becky Lansing, figured they would keep the ball field around for a few days for family and friends.
Well, 21 years and one million visitors later, the field still stands, but is no longer wanted by the Lansings.
“It’s like being a baseball player; when your time is up, it’s up,’’ says Don Lansing, 68, in an interview with the Boston Globe.
Time will tell if the Field of Dreams will be purchased for the $5.1 million asking price.
Throughout the years, the Lansings have never charged admission or for parking. They received $50,000 from Universal Studios the location shoot and on May 5, 1989, according to the Globe, a man from New York drove cross-country to the site and wept at home plate. He insisted on giving Lansing a New York Giants baseball cap.
That's all it took. From there on out, visitors increased each year, leveling off at 65,000 people annually.
With every person that visited the field, there were a slew of stories, Don Lansing told the Globe.
In fact, one of the stories is about how the Lansings met.
You see, Don was a bachelor who lived with his mother until he was in his mid-50s. Becky, who was a widow living in Boulder, Colo., met Don on New Year’s Day 1995 after she had three dreams telling her to report to the Field of Dreams. So she hopped in the car and drove, she told the Globe.
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