Okay, that’s a made up line. But less than a year after Brushbackpitch.com finished up an eight day road trip by stopping at the Field of Dreams, Don and Becky Lansing have put the property up for sale.

The Lansings love the land, according to the Wall Street Journal. It has been in the Lansing family for more than a century.

But they’ve maintained it themselves since Universal Studio built it. And, having seen it up close, it’s easy to see that it could become a maintenance issue.

In addition to the baseball diamond, a two-bedroom house, six outbuildings, and a 193-acre parcel of land are on sale. The Wall Street Journal says a price hasn’t been listed, but the Associated Press says $5.4 million is the price tag.

Not a bad payback for letting a movie company take over your house for a few months for filming.

I can’t remember if either of us ever posted our thoughts on the Dyersville, Iowa tourist stop. But it was definitely worth driving way the hell into the middle of nowhere.

Families played catch on the field and wandered in and out of the same cornfield the players walked through in the movie. They sat on the same bleachers and looked for the “Ray Loves Annie” carving.

And then they wandered into the gift shop that, I’m sure, has provided the Lansings with a pretty decent living the last two decades.

I don’t know who will end up buying Field of Dreams. It’s certainly out of the price range of the owners of Brushbackpitch.com. But I hope it’s someone interested in maintaining it as it is right now.

It’d be a shame to see it fall into the hands of someone less interested in maintaining as it is. If you get a chance, especially before the Lansings sell, I’d recommend checking it out.

It’s worth the trip.

Tony and I woke up in Louisville, Ky. on Monday and started our week with a tour of the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, a building that just sort of pops up in the business district out of nowhere.

A guide, definitely schooled in the history of the game and the bat-making process, led us on a roughly 45-minute tour of the company’s history. The current employees helped out a lot too, as one guy demonstrated the old process for making a bat that included carving tool and lathe.

It used to take Louisville Slugger workers 30 minutes to carve a pro model bat. Now in the automated machines, they can do one in 30 seconds.  Lacquering and finishing pro model bats is still done by hand—they were working on an order for Alex Gordon while we were there.

After the tour we were able to look at several displays on the both the bat-making process and on the different styles of bats they’ve made for major league players over their 100+ years of being in the business.

After embarrassing ourselves in the cages at the Slugger museum, we made the four hour trek to St. Louis, to check out the new Busch Stadium in a Cardinals game versus the Reds.

To us, the new Busch Stadium ranks somewhere alongside Jacobs Field. I think aesthetically we both liked PNC Park in Pittsburgh a little better. And I know I still have Camden Yards and Coors Field at the top of my list of favorite parks.

But what makes the new Busch, and the city of St. Louis as a whole, stand out in a baseball crowd is the atmosphere at the ballpark. Fans appreciate the nuances of the game – several times they cheered sacrifice flies and sacrifice bunts as they scored runs and advanced runners.

Furthermore, they are respectful of the efforts of opponents as well. When Willy Taveras went flying face first into the centerfield wall in chasing a Matt Holliday drive Monday night, they remained silent while he was on the ground regaining his senses.

When Taveras got to his feet the crowd cheered. This didn’t seem to be just polite applause celebrating the fact that he was alright. It was loud, real applause for a guy who had sacrificed his body in an effort to make a play (though I’m sure it helped that he missed the catch and Holliday ended up on third base).

Maybe this would have happened in other places too – but I’ve heard good things about Cardinals fans in many cities I’ve been and they’ve never done anything to prove wrong any of the accolades. They are widely considered educated, good fans of the game and I each time I’ve been here I’ve felt they’ve earned that praise.

I’ve been to St. Louis for ballgames three times now – twice in the old park and once in the new building. The new Busch is definitely an upgrade but it also hasn’t turned these fans soft.

Anyway, the Cardinals’ 4-1 win Monday brings the professional baseball part of our week long tour to a close.  Today, we’re making our turn to the home stretch—but we do have one more stop to make—they built it, so we’re coming.

Tony and I made our first journey through PNC Park this afternoon It was interesting seeing the jerseys on sale in the team’s souvenir shop – the most recognizable name was Ryan Doumit.

The flags flying on light poles outside the ballpark featured guys like Garrett Jones and Ramon Vazquez. This is a team seemingly intent on trading every position player on its roster.

As we wandered PNC Park, with its jutting outfield and views of several bridges and the skyline in the outfield, it’s almost as though ownership thinks the beauty of the ballpark outweighs the need to spend the money to put a major league product on the field. Yes, Delwyn Young might be a perfectly fine role player. But he batted third in the lineup today.

I said to my brother “Any team with Delwyn Young batting third doesn’t have a good immediate future.”

He reminded me that Young was leading the team in some hitting categories. Again, I said “Any team with Delwyn Young leading the team in major hitting categories doesn’t have a good immediate future.”

It’s not that the cupboard is completely bare. Stephen Pearce hit two homeruns today. And Andrew McCutchen has been as good as advertised since the team brought him up.

But deals like the one that allegedly cleared space for McCutchen – Nate McLouth to Atlanta for three prospects – are the reason I am suspicious of team ownership’s motives. If they had a history of turning those deals into an improved product or at least into improved prospects for the future, one might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But that’s not the case with these guys.

Out of curiosity I rewound through yahoo to find out what the Pirates’ starting lineup was on April 2, 2008. It is listed below. Shockingly, seven of the eight position players are no longer with the team. A look at the team’s first five starting pitchers of the 2008 season revealed that two are still on the team, two have been traded, and one is out of baseball. There was talk that one of the guys that is left, Zach Duke, was on the block before the deadline.

The lineup and where those players are currently is below:

Pirates 2008 opening day lineup
CF McLouth – Atlanta
2B Sanchez – San Francisco
LF Bay – Boston
1B LaRoche – Atlanta via Boston
RF Nady – New York Yankees – out for the season
C Doumit – Still in Pittsburgh
3B Bautista – Toronto
SS Wilson – Seattle

Starting Rotation
T. Gorzelanny – Cubs
Z. Duke – Started today
M. Morris – Out of baseball
P. Maholm – Still in Pittsburgh
I. Snell – Seattle

Sure, some of the prospects the Pirates received in trades for those guys may have decent futures. But at some point, for a team to make a move forward, it has to commit to keeping some of its good players to build around. In trading McLouth the team took one of those building blocks and shipped him away for a bunch of “could bes” and “might bes” instead of moving him to a corner outfield position and pairing him with McCutchen.

Such moves might have been understandable in the cases of players like Jason Bay, who was soon to be heading toward free agency. But McLouth isn’t just some fly-by-night, one-year-wonder. He was an All-Star and Gold Glove winner in 2008, and more importantly, he was under contract for a couple more years at affordable prices. Sure. McCutchen was ready for the bigs. But why couldn’t McLouth move to a corner outfield spot?

Then the Buckos would have had two legitimate young stars to build around – M&M Brothers akin to Minnesota’s Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Instead, the Pirates close in on the trade deadline in full shed mode. The Pirates went into Wednesday’s game with legitimate prospects in McCutchen and first baseman Stephen Pearce, with youngsters like outfielder Brandon Moss and third baseman Andy LaRoche on the bench.

But the lineup was also dotted by recycled guys like Delwyn Young, Garrett Jones at first base and Ramon Vazquez at shortstop.

Sure, they got decent hauls for some of these guys. Tim Alderson, the pitcher they got from San Francisco for Freddy Sanchez, is a legitimate talent.

But don’t you eventually have to pick a couple guys and build around them? Don’t the fans eventually deserve for the team to grow around some of these guys, supplementing them when they look promising rather than jettisoning them as they have done so often in recent years?

Instead, the Pirates remain Major League Baseball’s current farm system for every other team in the league. They haven’t had a winning season since Barry Bonds took off for San Francisco and they’re constantly trading off vets approaching their big contract years.

As we wandered around the beautiful ballpark in the heart of downtown at the convergence of three rivers we both remarked at what a shame it was. Pittsburgh is a proud, hard-working town that is passionate about its sports teams. The Steelers have won six Super Bowls. The Penguins have gone to back-to-back Stanley Cups, winning the last one. The city has rebuilt itself after years of struggles as the steel industry slowly sagged in importance.

As it sits, the Pirates continue to sag in importance as well. Championship flags from World Series wins past barely flew in the heat and humidity of the first 90-plus degree day of 2009 in Pittsburgh. I like a good rebuilding project. I like building from within. But it’s questionable to me whether there’s really a plan here. With the moves at this year’s deadline and the others made since the start of the 2008 season, you can make a pretty good argument that the decade-and-a-half rebuilding project is doing nothing more than starting again.

When Tony and I planned this trip we started by picking a couple of main stops (Canton for the NFL inductions and Pittsburgh for the renowned ballpark) then started filling in some blanks.

We decided to make a stop in Toledo because Fifth Third Field was once named the Best Minor League Ballpark in America. Because of traffic, we arrived for the Toledo/Gwinnett game in the middle of the third inning. Before we saw a pitch, we’d made friends with a quartet of seniors in the row behind us, two of whom will be celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Congratulations, folks.

Located in the middle of downtown Toledo, we found parking about five blocks away for $5 and bought tickets for $9 each. The neighborhood has some vacant buildings, but also has a couple lively restaurants and bars. Then suddenly across the street we saw people milling around a decorative fence and we realized we had arrived at the park.

The game itself was a little less than exciting – a scoreless tie was quickly broken with an eight run inning for the Mud Hens. More impressive to me were the great viewing points – even our seats in deep right field faced the pitcher and batter, though our view of the right fielder was obscured a bit.

We wandered around the park, visiting standing room areas in centerfield and picnic tables between left and center. The concessions weren’t anything incredibly out of the ordinary, but their two souvenir shops – one of which (The Swamp Shop) appeared to be the main store and one of which was smaller, were both staffed by friendly people who appeared to be enjoying their employment at the ballpark.

And we saw Brent Clevlen, a second round pick of the Detroit Tigers in 2002 who has excelled in the minors but just not quite made it yet in the bigs, hit a moon shot homer that first landed on an awning in deep right center field and then kept bouncing until it landed likely in the street outside the park.

It was a nice way to relax after a six-hour drive from the outskirts of Milwaukee. As my brother put it, “if I lived here, I’d have season tickets.”

The team was out of town and, save for some street lights, it was dark. We stopped and snapped a few photos but didn’t really get a true sense for the park.

But we took a brief drive around Selig Drive, getting as much of a peak at the exterior of the ballpark as we could. One observation my brother made was that in an era where ballparks are being built in smaller, more intimate settings, Miller Park appears to be larger than life – and somewhat resembling a spaceship from at least one angle.

We’ll make it back for a game at some point.

Actually, one aspect of the area we were both intrigued by is Helfaer Field, which according to Wikipedia is a little league park located where the infield at the Brewers’ former home, Milwaukee County Stadium, used to be. There was someone finishing up maintenance work there when we drove the perimeter of Miller Park, so the lights were still on. It was a nice, well-kept spot for little leaguers and a fitting tribute to the former park.