Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Field of Dreams - Dyersville, Iowa

More than a year after it was put on the market, the famous Field of Dreams set location from the 1989 movie was sold to an investment group call Go The Distance LLC.  They won’t be moving into the house–rather they plan to develop the 193-acre lot into a baseball/softball training and tournament complex, including a dome for indoor training.

The famous cornfields are visited by an estimated 65,000 visitors per year–including, in 2009, by the proprietors of this site. The field itself wasn’t actually all that impressive–but the ambiance was definitely impressive, and I could easily see charities and companies wanting to hold tournaments there.

Youth leagues, though, I’m not sold on yet–and having a training facility in a town of 4,000 in rural Iowa seems like a stretch.

I hope they can make something of it–but at the same time, even more importantly, I hope they don’t ruin the feel of the actual field that made the site famous in the first place.

Of course, since the game was in Florida, there were only just over 25,000 fans in attendance for the game–about 8,000 more than for an average Marlins home game.

So what to do with the other 13,000+ tickets that weren’t sold (and probably were never even printed)?

Well, if you’re the money grubbing Marlins, there’s only one logical solution–sell them. At face value.

That’s right, for between (based on published ticket prices) $12 and $300+, you to can claim that you were there to witness history.

Or turn around and try to resell the ticket on eBay–try to get a Halladay autograph, package it with a Halladay trading card, make a nice little plaque, and turn yourself a nice little profit.

  

    

    

      Roy Halladay Autographed Perfect Game Ticket - ONCE IN A LIFETIME PURCHASE

      US $123.50  (3 Bids)

      
 End Date: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 14:11:47 PST


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      Roy Halladay Autographed Perfect Game Ticket - ONCE IN A LIFETIME PURCHASE

      US $123.50  (3 Bids)

      
 End Date: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 14:14:42 PST


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      Roy Halladay signed REAL MLB Batting practice Hat w/COA  and PERFECT GAME TICKET

      US $99.99 

      
 End Date: Thursday Feb-09-2012 10:23:42 PST


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As an occasional collector of sports memorabilia, this seems…just dirty to me. As a fan, had I attended the game, I could see keeping that ticket stub, and making some sort of collectible. And I could see a truly passionate fan (of Halladay or the Phillies) buying some sort of memento. But in either case, having a ticket that was actually used would mean 100x more than having something printed after the fact.

What’s next, just print up an extra 50,000 tickets with May 29, 2010 on them, and sell them in the fan shop?  Maybe Commemorative Replica Tickets?

It would be slightly more palatable if the Marlins printed something extra on the ticket, indicating it was not used on game day–but the story makes no indication of that, and I doubt it would happen.

Which means, once again, the Marlins have found a way to sully MLB tradition, and the way the game should be conducted, in my eyes.

[Note: It's possible this is a regular thing with many teams in MLB, and I've just not heard of it before--if that's the case, just add it to the list of reasons for why I don't think MLB will ever reclaim the #1 spot in my heart for sports, even if the NFL does manage to screw things up by having a lockout/strike in the coming year.]

A week before the game there appeared little to make this ABC Monday Night Baseball a special match up. The Orioles would go on to win 102 games and play in the World Series while the Yankees were playing out the stretch on a fourth place season.

Then, on August 2, Thurmon Munson was killed while practicing takeoffs and landings at the Akron Canton Airport.

Flags flew at half-mast at Yankee Stadium during the Thurmon Munson Tribute game, shown this afternoon on ESPN Classic, 30 years to the day after Munson died.

I’m not a Yankees fan by any stretch but it’s hard not to appreciate the team’s history. And a big part of that history during the 1970s was Munson.

Broadcasting legend Howard Cosell said late in that broadcast that “If integrity and decency and honor matter Thurmon Munson represented all of them.”

Cosell’s partner, Keith Jackson – always more concise than his words – described Munson simply as “a gamer.”

Munson’s number 15 was immediately retired by George Steinbrenner and his locker – transported to the Yankee museum in the new ballpark this year – was never used again.

But his teammates provided probably the greatest tribute a group of teammates could provide for a fallen team leader. They fought and clawed to win in dramatic fashion a game in which they fell behind 4-0.

The powerful Orioles bunch had won 62 of the last 63 games they had led heading into the ninth inning. But Murcer, one of Munson’s two closest friends on the team (with Lou Piniella, according to media reports) provided the winning hit.

It’s been 30 years to the day since Munson died. He is not in the Hall of Fame and at this point it’s likely he won’t end up there. But he’s got ballparks and sports bars named after him in Canton, Ohio and a legacy in New York proven by a series of stories the New York Post published five years ago.

He clearly left a mark.