(Thomas Froese Photo)
From left, baseball legends Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, and Babe Ruth appear ghostlike in the front display glass at Mickey’s Place, a vintage baseball store in Cooperstown, NY.
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, November 8, 2025)
If you ever find yourself on the other side of the American border without knowing exactly what to do about this, my advice is to get to Cooperstown, in Upstate New York, the birthplace of baseball and where you can hang around with baseball ghosts.
Hockey, of course, has its ghosts skating around, like in Nova Scotia’s town of Windsor, seen by some as hockey’s place of birth. I just discovered it’s a twin community of Cooperstown.
These ghosts aren’t the sort that clank around at night. They’re more helpful voices that can travel across time for, say, Remembrance Day – “This way, boys!” Or they can help make sense of the Blue Jays’ recent World Series loss, that strange Game 7, extra-innings loss on All Saints Day that left us speechless.
One day while in front of a vintage baseball shop on Main Street in Cooperstown I saw what looked like the ghosts of Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth. Near the Baseball Hall of Fame and Doubleday Field, baseball’s official birthplace, there they were in the storefront glass, reflected against buildings and trees like ghosts close enough to touch.
Now keep in mind that ghosts may or may not always wear shoes. I find something both rebellious and holy in this, running around without shoes. So, naturally, baseball’s best-known ghost is Shoeless Joe Jackson.
This is largely thanks to the novel, “Shoeless Joe,” by W.P. Kinsella, a Canadian writer interested in Canadian culture and Indigenous issues and, of course, baseball. Maybe you’ve seen “Field of Dreams,” with Kevin Costner, the film based on Kinsella’s remarkable novel.
Shoeless Joe Jackson, a major league superstar who played from 1908 to 1920, had a lifetime batting average that’s still among the highest ever. He’s also known because of the so-called “Black Sox scandal” of the 1919 World Series.
Eight Chicago White Sox players, including Jackson, were banned from pro baseball for allegedly throwing the series for gambler’s money. It’s an interesting charge considering Jackson’s 12 hits set a World Series record that lasted 45 years. Now, in 2025, he’s been exonerated.
But the book “Shoeless Joe,” a novel of magical realism, is about something else, namely the fictitious character Ray Kinsella. Ray hears ghostlike voices, then makes one crazy move after another, including ploughing-under his farm’s corn so he can build a baseball diamond for, well, he’s not sure. It’s where we get the phrase, “If you build it, they will come.”
The story is about life as much as baseball. It has something to say about getting over our human fears. It speaks to the nature of fatherhood. It’s also about ritual and freedom, faith and community and togetherness, being connected in these very earthy and very heavenly ways.
When a young Shoeless Joe eventually appears at the farm ball diamond, he asks, “Is this heaven?” Ray replies, “No. It’s Iowa.”
What comes from it all is a certain peace and a message that says something like this: “You have one life. Just one. So listen carefully to it. Don’t worry what others might do or think. Just swing for the fences. No, really. Live your life like the created work of art that you are.”
This, it seems to me, is what these ghosts are saying. So earlier this year, when Father’s Day rolled around, I said to my wife and kids, “All I want is to sit together and watch “Field of Dreams.” And we did.
This is why the Blue Jays’ playoff run was about more than losing. Or winning. Not that winning in sports isn’t important. It is. It’s worthy work. Who doesn’t enjoy championships? But sometimes when you lose something precious – even, eventually, your life – you gain other things never imagined.
So love the game, sure. And love each other. And pass the popcorn.
Shoeless Joe would say something like this if he was watching. And who’s to say he wasn’t?
Love the post! The games were a true inspiration of hard work and great team work. I work with children, teaching piano. I enjoy encouraging each that our ten fingers is our team, the piano player’s team. Let’s continue to train our team well, to work together, and keep on practicing technique faithfully. Thank you once again for a great post.
Sounds like you’re a good piano teacher, Susan. Thanks for the helpful reminder.