Character Development --- Grieving; Ethical Emphasis --Trustworthiness.
Description: Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer with a wife and a little girl. He has never resolved his conflicts with his baseball loving father who had died many years before. As the movie opens, Kinsella begins to hear voices and becomes obsessed with an urge to build a baseball stadium in his best corn field. When the field is built it is visited by the ghosts of frustrated baseball players, including Kinsella's father. Through the events in the film Kinsella overcomes his feelings of guilt about his relationship with his father and can, at last, grieve for his father's death.
Helpful Background:
In 1919 gamblers bribed seven players on the Chicago White Sox to allow the Cincinnati Reds to win the World Series. The next year the seven and an eighth player, who knew about the scheme but didn't report it, were banned from baseball for life. The "Black Sox Scandal" was the worst scandal in the history of baseball. The response of major league baseball, i.e., zero tolerance for cheating, set the tone for professional sports that continues to the present day. This policy has been a major factor in the success of baseball and other professional sports in the U.S. The seven players were Eddie Cicotte, Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, and Lefty Williams. Buck Weaver was the man who did not take the bribe but knew about it and didn't report it.
1. Moonlight Graham had wanted all his life to be a professional ball player. Remember when he came out of the field and out of death to save the daughter from choking? What is the author trying to tell us by putting this incident into the film?
2. What did the baseball field represent in terms of Ray Kinsella's relationship with his father? 3. Did Ray Kinsella feel guilty about the way he had treated his father? How did this affect his ability to grieve his father's death? 4. What was Ray Kinsella's attitude toward his father when the movie opened and how did that change? 5. Did the fact that Ray Kinsella's had a daughter have anything to do with his sudden need to reconcile with his father's memory? Was the age of the daughter, just when a child begins to learn how to throw balls and catch, a factor as well?
6. Why is a zero tolerance attitude toward cheating and gambling essential to the success of professional sports? What does this tell you about the importance of trustworthiness as a general rule of behavior for everyone?