Opinion : The favorite but geometrically misunderstood sanctuary is open again

"What's the big deal? It's just a baseball field next to a corn field. We've got that here in Vinton."

My wife is not at all a Kevin Costner fan, so she does not really care to visit the "Field of Dreams" movie site.

So I had to explain why I stopped there with two of our daughters last summer.

The fascination with the baseball diamond cut out of a corn field near Dyersville is not about a movie, even though it's Iowa's most-famous movie site.

It's not even about the quotes that are now cliches: If you build it, they will come. Go the distance. Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa.

It's all about baseball, and the wonderful things that happen to people anywhere the game is played.

Even though the story in the movie is fiction, it brings to life a fact that so many people have discovered for nearly a century and a half in America and beyond: Baseball provides a sanctuary, a place to get away from the distractions of life, and find between the foul lines the things that matter the most.

That's why the movie is so popular, and why people from hundreds of miles away stop to play baseball there, and have their picture taken as they walk from the cornfield into the outfield.

Last summer, the night I took my daughters to the Field of Dreams, a family from Texas was there, parked between a vehicle from Ontario and two motorcycles driven by a man about my age, and his father.

In fact, most of the people who were there that day were about my age.

And while I did not ask them, I guessed that they were there for the same reason I was: To remember the magic of baseball.

From the most impressive major league stadiums to the most rustic grass or dirt (or even in the poor neighborhoods of some big cities, concrete) fields, baseball is more than a game. It's a place where people learn about life, whether you are participating or watching.

My knowledge of the game is limited to the basics we try to coach kids 10 and under. I can teach most any kid how to throw, hit or catch.

In the few times I found myself in the lucky role of coach, there were two lessons I hoped to teach every kid about baseball.

1. I can do this.

2. This is fun.

And I have treasured the smile on the face of the kid who got his first hit, or caught his first line drive.

But even for those who take baseball much more seriously, a stadium is about more than the game.

A young pro player once looked up into the stands and saw a beautiful woman. "I'm going to marry her someday," he said to a teammate. That lady later became Mrs. Brooks Robinson.

So many people have their own Baseball Story. Something amazing or life changing happened to them while participating in, or watching a game.

Here in Vinton, players, families and fans of the 2009 V-S Vikings have our own inspiring story, which is why so many of us drove past the sign that said "Field of Dreams" last summer. The team won the right to go to the State Tournament after winning a game they played just 10 miles east of the field that movie made famous.

But ours is just one of countless stories about the inspiring things that can happen on a baseball field, and to those who watch the game.

You all remember hearing about how Babe Ruth stood in a hospital room in front a newspaper camera and famously promised a sick boy that he would hit a home run in the 1926 World Series, and then did.

But an even more incredible story took place last year. A very sick girl gave a good luck charm to a reserve Yankee player, Brett Gardner, and told him it would enable him hit a home run.

But unlike Ruth, Gardner is not a slugger. He knew better than to promise a home run.

Then the next day, a Yankee starter was ejected from the game for arguing with an umpire. The manager put Gardner in. In the seventh inning he hit a blooper that bounced past the outfielder and slowly rolled to the fence. He scored on the Yankee's first inside-the-park home run in 10 years.

And in a scene that you might think came from a movie writer, the girl, Alyssa Esposito, who was waiting for a heart transplant, got the call that a heart had been found for her at the same time Gardner hit that rare home run.

The first words she heard when she woke up after her long transplant operation were: He hit a home run.

That’s why men like me with virtually no baseball experience beyond youth league go to The Field of Dreams. Because we understand that a baseball field is something of a sanctuary, a special place where amazing things can happen to anybody. And as, Alyssa Esposito and Brett Gardner learned that special day, those amazing things can happen to absolutely anybody.

This week, we celebrated Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. And all over the nation, children are heading to parks and lots and baseball diamonds to learn the basics. And while they learn about the game, they are also learning lessons that will last a lifetime.

I have written before that “a diamond is a boy’s best friend,” referring, of course, to the way most people see the infield.

But one of the things I love to do to trick people is to ask them: What is the shape of a baseball infield?

They always say, “diamond.”

They are wrong.

The infield (and if you doubt me, look it up in a baseball rule book) is a square.

Seriously. Look at it. Four equal sides of 90 feet each. Four equal angles, 90 degrees.

That makes it a square. It’s called a diamond because the square is turned at a 45 degree angle in relationship to the field.

So, the next time someone asks you why you want to go to some baseball field next to a corn field, all you need to say is this:

“Because a square is a man’s (and often boy’s, girl’s or woman’s) best friend.”