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 The Elaborate Ruse
Many plans were discussed to end the Field of Dreams feud.
A person who worked with the HBO comedy series Arliss suggested that Robert Wuhl should appear out of the corn as the fictional sports agent and negotiate a settlement between the two landowners. The event could possibly then be incorporated into one of the episodes of the TV series. Of course the fee for a personal appearance, plane fare, lodging and meals proposed by the fictional agent's real agent would make that impossible. Besides, this was SportsHollywood's mission, not Arliss'.
Screenwriter R. Lee Fleming Jr. suggested that a Henry Kissinger look-alike could appear from the corn and negotiate a settlement. We were all very excited about this idea: the ghost of Henry Kissinger would return to make peace! It all seemed very dramatic ... until we remembered that Henry Kissinger was actually still alive.
But this ghost idea had possibilities. After all, it is a ghost in the film that leads Ray Kinsella to his ultimate redemption.
So then other historical figures were suggested: Gandhi, God, Abner Doubleday--even Ty Cobb and Hitler. They would emerge from the corn, have a catch, hug, sing "Kumbaya," and beckon to representatives from the two shops. All we had to do was transport Hitler and Gandhi look-alikes to Iowa for several days (and find out what Abner Doubleday looked like).
© 1997 by Universal City Studios, Inc. |
Then one of the ghosts could read a message from Terence Mann (the J.D. Salinger-like writer in the film, played by James Earl Jones, who traveled into the Great Beyond by way of the cornfield in the movie). Mann's message would tell the opposing sides that the hostilities must cease, that baseball will bring them together... and that he would like six loaded hot dogs and an extra-large Diet Coke from the food stand.
If that didn't work, bitter adversaries such as Abe Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, Jay Leno and David Letterman, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat—even Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky—could emerge from out of the corn and reconcile on the field, thus setting a positive example for the two stores to follow.
These ideas were all discarded. After all, baseball was supposed to bring the neighboring souvenir stands together, not some elaborate trick. It would be a disservice to the national pastime to try to con them into coming together...
... Besides, it would have cost a lot.
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CHAPTER FOUR: SportsHollywood rallies the creators of the film join us in our quest to unite the rival souvenir shops and to "ease their pain."
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MAIN PAGE: "If you build it, the other guy won't leave." How baseball didn't bring two people together.
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