Because I don’t find baseball very interesting, I decided to Google why it’s America’s so-called pastime. According to the Baseball Hall of Fame it has been an emotional support sport through some of the country’s roughest times, dating back to the Civil War. I might not get baseball, but I do understand the desire to find therapy in every nook and cranny. Or in this case, every hot dog and home run. 

I have never been adversely affected by my apathy towards baseball. It really comes down to the fact that I was raised by a football fan. It’s that old chestnut: nature vs nurture. Maybe there is a certain amount of bloodlust flowing through my veins that can only be satiated by modern day gladiators pummeling each other in a branded colosseum. Understanding my love of football never came up in conversations with my therapist. There were bigger fish to fry.

My only relationship to baseball exists in film, and it’s tenuous at best. One of my favorite movies is “Field of Dreams,” which is a baseball movie not actually about baseball. Although I loathe the way the word trauma is overly used on social media, I’m about to drop it here. It’s no secret that “Field of Dreams” is really about healing family trauma. 

“Field of Dreams” stars Kevin Costner as Ray Kinsella, a disillusioned farmer living in Iowa whose life changes when he starts hearing a voice. While standing in a cornfield questioning just about everything, Ray hears the words, “If you build it, he will come.” The “it’ in question ends up being a baseball field only made possible by plowing over much of Ray’s crops. His wife and young daughter remain unfailingly supportive through what some might say is a midlife crisis. This decision is especially confusing because the Kinsella family is in debt, a fact we are reminded of constantly by Ray’s odious brother-in-law who continuously offers to buy their farm.

After ghosts of various famous baseball players start showing up to play, Ray thinks he has cracked the voice’s code, until it tells him to, “Ease his pain.” Suddenly Ray finds himself in Chicago trying to convince beatnik author Terence Mann (played by James Earl Jones) to join him at a baseball game at Wrigley Field. Ray is convinced he has to ease Terence’s pain.

If you’re a savvy person with a well-stocked mental health toolbox, you have probably guessed that the person whose pain needs easing is Ray’s. He grew up with a father who forced baseball onto his son to make up for a career that never took off. Ray reveals that he eventually grew to resent playing catch with his dad, who died before Ray could fix what was broken. 

In the emotional final scene of the film, a catcher on the field stands up and removes his mask. “Oh my God,” says Ray, “It’s my father.” I don’t have to watch the entire movie to feel the weight of this scene. As I write this, I’m crying while watching a 3 minute and 27 second clip of Ray realizing he has been given a second chance. 

When I was younger, I cried because this is obviously a beautiful moment. At the time, I didn’t connect this reaction to the complicated relationship I had with my own mother. It’s possible my body knew what my mind and heart didn’t have the language to convey. I’m also willing to admit that back then, I simply didn’t have a desire to cry over my mother. I was too angry about my childhood.

In March 2026 my mom celebrated 21 years of being sober. I was at the meeting and handed her the chip that is the physical embodiment of over two decades of hard work. We have a relationship that wouldn’t be possible without her recovery, and my years of therapy born from a desire to stop willingly hurting myself. 

When I watch “Field of Dreams” now, I see it through the eyes of someone who was also given a second chance to fix a shattered relationship with a parent. The crying has an added layer of gratefulness. If my mother didn’t decide to finally get sober, I wouldn’t be able to experience her as the whole, caring human she always was. If I didn’t decide to really try in therapy, she wouldn’t be able to experience me as a reformed agent of chaos. So it goes.

The only ghosts left in our fields are the ones that pop up from time to time when one person has missed a key instruction in the other’s user manual. Here’s the difference, we have learned how to apologize to each other. We have been taught that anger is not the first place to go. My mother and I figured out how to ease each other’s pain without losing a piece of ourselves. Not everyone is able to get to this place. I often advocate for folks to sever ties with loved ones who aren’t willing to look at their own mistakes. But if you can, and don’t mind advice from a stranger, I say build it.

This piece is in Recommend If You Like The Baseball Issue Summer 2026. You can find physical copies in bars, cafes and stores in Chicago and Washington, D.C. The newspaper is available for purchase here. 

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