Shoeless Joe

“If you build it, he will come.”

The most famous quote of the novel, this statement refers to the voice heard by Ray, a struggling Iowa farmer, who is instructed to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his cornfield. The ‘he’ referred to in the instruction is Shoeless Joe Jackson, the baseball star disgraced for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series and the eponymous hero of the novel. The voice is telling Ray to build a baseball field in the midst of his corn crop in order to give his hero a chance at redemption. The baseball field built by Ray becomes a conduit to the spirits of baseball legends, including Shoeless Joe himself.

“I count the loves in my life: Annie, Karin, Iowa, Baseball. The great god Baseball.” 

Ray, as a narrator, has an exclusive relationship with the readers. After Ray hears the voice, Ray reports to the reader about the loves of his life. The reader realizes that love is one of the important themes of the novel, with baseball as the background. Even as the story proceeds, Ray constantly reminds the reader of his love for his family, Iowa and baseball. As the novel progresses, the readers realize that perhaps the love for baseball is a quality that transcends the hearts of the characters and enriches them with the magic to grow dreams and love those around them.

“Shoeless Joe became a symbol of the tyranny of the powerful over the powerless.”

The statement refers to the controversy surrounding the baseball legend, Shoeless Joe who was banished from the game of baseball for taking part in gambling. Kinsella’s assertion of Shoeless Joe as a victim of the oppressive nature of the rich and powerful stems from the way the career of Shoeless Joe evolved. Baseball players had very little leverage in negotiating their contracts and earned a pittance compared to the money they generated for their owners. The baseball profit margins were skewed heavily toward the teams’ owners. In the 1919 World Series, the gamblers, to generate more money, used Joe. Even though Joe took the money, he hit multiple home runs and batted over .350. Kenesaw Lendis, Commissioner of Baseball, banished Joe from the game, despite the fact that no one could prove that Joe threw the series.

“Now I stand ready to cut into the cornfield, to chisel away a piece of livelihood to use as dream currency.” 

The statement shows how hard Ray and his wife have worked at owning and working at the farm. Dreams are an important theme of the book and so are the sacrifices that are necessary to make these dreams come true. The farm is a means of livelihood for Ray and his family. Ray has to convert the farm into a baseball field to allow his vision to turn into reality. The statement is reflective of the fact that dreams can only be turned into reality through a staggering amount of commitment, risk and sacrifice.

“The process is all so slow, as dreams are slow, as dreams suspend time like a balloon hung in midair.” 

The statement reflects the theme of religion that pervades the novel. It shows that Ray’s hope for a “miracle” is very much the reason some people go to church. Ray is hoping for his dreams to come true, but he knows that it takes time for dreams to turn into reality. People hope by praying and waiting, things will happen that are otherwise out of their control.

“Ease his pain.” 

The quote is challenging to understand as at the time that Ray hears it, he translates it to be the pain of the reclusive writer J.D Salinger who is saddened over the closing of the Polo Grounds. The obscurity of the quote is further enhanced when Salinger denies his love or connection with the game of baseball, nor does Salinger seem to be in pain for not writing anymore. In a larger sense, as the novel proceeds, the reader feels that this statement can be applied to several other characters in the novel who are in pain, such as Eddie Scissons, the banished White Sox players and Moonlight Graham. The baseball field that Ray builds is able to “ease the pain” of all these characters.

“Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they’re good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. But the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples’ lives for them.”

In this statement, J.D. Salinger outlines the importance of imagination and magic in the lives of writers. The interplay of magic and reality that is a part of the structure of the book, written in the genre of Magic Realism, is also an inherent quality of any writer’s work. The writer writes for other people and his own subjectivity must be absent from his writings. Writers live the lives of other people and people believe in what the writers write, as long as they write well.

“Within the baselines anything can happen . . . anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.”

This novel has a strong feeling of surrealism and imagination and it is hard to differentiate between what is actually happening and Ray’s imagination. Ray is trying to find happiness and satisfaction through building the baseball field and thereby allow other people to find happiness and fulfill their dreams. It is explained that people came to the field to find something, whether it was something missing in their lives or the famous baseball names from the past. The statement is reflective of the importance of baseball to the everyday fan, and what it means to them. Through the very surrealistic and allusion-filled style of writing, Kinsella shows how baseball means way more than just watching men play a game. It shows how people can provide happiness and a lot of answers to things outside of baseball just by being an avid participator in the game, either as a player or as a fan.

“Hardly anybody recognizes the most significant moments of their life at the time they happen.” 

This statement by Moonlight Graham not only captures the transience of human life but also the inability of humans to recognize and hold on to the precious moments of their lives. Unable to appreciate the good things happening in their lives, humans seek further gratification, with no idea of what the future holds for them. Graham played for the New York Giants but fails to appreciate it at that moment because he felt that there would be many more “significant moments” in life. However, he fails to attain the fame that he believed he would, and, in the process, failed to enjoy the moments that he should have.

“I can tell you have a healthy contempt for authority, big business, academia, religion – all the forces that control our lives.”

Ray is a dreamer, a man with an advanced sense of imagination who is averse to anything that controls his way of living. He has a dislike for his wife’s family, who practice traditional Christianity and are dogmatic in their views. The statement also reflects the novelist’s contempt for the people in authority who control the lives of the powerless. The gamblers who bribed the underpaid White Sox players tried to control their lives and consequently destroyed their careers.

“‘This is the kind of place where anything can happen, isn’t it?’ Joe said to me that night.”

This is a question asked by the reincarnated Shoeless Joe to Ray, whose fealty to an idea has been rewarded with a private playground filled with late and great baseball players. The place is considered to be heaven by people like Shoeless Joe, who can fulfill dreams they could not, in life. Since any heaven worthy of the name would have to be capable of being all things to all people, the shamed baseball player wishes to know if this heaven on earth is the place where anything can happen.

“‘There is a magic about it’, I say. “You have to be there to feel the magic.” 

The statement captures the allure of the baseball game that is a part of the American life and is infused in Americans from childhood and lingers on into their adult years. The magic of the game is inherent in its pure sensory appeal, and therefore it is impossible to complete penetrate into the mysteries of the game. It is this ‘magic’ that Ray talks about in this statement that captures the enchanting qualities of the game.

“Is there enough magic floating around out in the night for you to make it come true?” 

Magic is one of the major themes of the novel. Moonlight Graham wants to make his wish come true and play in a major league game again. Can Ray’s baseball field fulfill his dream? Graham wants to know if the magical baseball field holds enough magic to fulfill his dream. The literal and metaphorical baseball field is a place where several characters in the book expect their long stifled and forgotten wishes to come true.

“A ballpark at night is more like a church than a church”. 

The spiritual dimension of Ray’s love for baseball is again evoked in this statement. For Ray, his love for baseball is more spiritual than his love for institutional religion. Ray feels that an empty ballpark at night that is devoid of people is filled with more religious identity than a formal church filled with a congregation. For Ray, the inclusivity of spiritual identity that an empty ballpark offers embraces a purer notion of religious identity than that offered by organized religion. 

“The kind of people I absolutely cannot tolerate are those, like Annie’s mother, whonever let you forget they are religious.”

Ray believes that true religion does not interfere with people being “human” and does not make them so insecure as to flaunt their religion all the time in front of other people. Ray’s mother-in-law brings religion into every conversation, be it coffee prices or discussions about weather. The first question Ray is asked when he applies for the room she had advertised for rent was whether he was a Christian. Throughout the novel, Ray contrasts the lack of joy present in traditional religion to baseball, which he loves as a religion and that has taught him the finer values of life.

“The world’s strangest babies are here. You’ve talked about them, wondered about them, now you owe it to yourself to see them.” 

The statement refers to the symbol of dead fetuses. Late in the novel, when Ray visits the carnival in Iowa City to meet Gypsy, she shows him inside the trailer where there are about a dozen glass containers. Each of the containers contains a faded black and white photograph of a deformed fetus.The image of twelve dead fetuses symbolizes the aborted dreams of Ray, which he tries to bring back to life in his baseball park. 

“‘You have to be touched by the land,’ I cried. ‘Once you’ve been touched by the land, the wind never blows so cold again, because your love flies the edges off it. And when the land suffers from flood or drought or endless winter, you feel for it more than for yourself, and you do what you can do to ease its pain.” 

Ray’s farm is a repository of dreams and is nursed by Ray like a child. The farm becomes a symbol of earthly things that become magical. In these statements, Ray expresses his almost-spiritual love for the land. Here, the land is effectively personified; Ray can feel its pain and discomfort. 

“Richard’s eyes are blind to magic. There is finally a difference between us.” 

Richard Kinsella is Ray's twin brother. He and Ray have not seen each other since the morning of their sixteenth birthdays. When Ray returns with Salinger to Iowa, he meets Richard at the farm. Richard is working with a traveling carnival that has stopped in Iowa City. At first, Richard is unable to see what happens in the baseball field and asks Ray to teach him how to do it. When Ray realizes that Richard cannot see the magic happening on the field, he realizes that there are many differences between him and his twin brother. Eventually, Richard is not only able to see what is happening at the baseball field but also is able to perceive and speak to his estranged father.

“But I understand Eddie Scissons. I know that some of us, and for some reason I am one of them, get to reach out and touch our heart’s desire, like a child who gets to pet the nose of an old horse, soft as satin, safe as a grandfather’s lap. And I know, too, that when most people reach for that heart’s desire, it appears not as a horse but as a tiger, and they are rewarded with snarls, frustration and disillusionment.” 

After Mark reveals Eddie’s fraud of never having played for the Chicago Cubs, Eddie slips away in embarrassment. Ray, who has known Eddie’s lies all along, understands Eddie and why he has told a lie. He compares Eddie to a child who believes that he is fulfilling his desires by remaining in his make-believe world of dreams. However, when he realizes that his dream was nothing but an illusion, he has to face the disillusionment and disappointment that comes along with it. 

“Praise the name of baseball. The word will set captives free.”

Eddie Scissons intuitively understands the importance of football and its religious connotations. Eddie told Ray that he is a religious man at their first meeting. He demonstrates that religion when the players and the fans surround Eddie on the baseball field and he starts chanting about baseball. In this speech, Eddie preaches about the game of baseball as a panacea. Eddie’s belief in the religion of baseball lends religious significance to the game.

“I heard somebody say once, ‘Success is getting what you want, but happiness is wanting what you get.’”

Eddie has many stories to tell about baseball and claims to have followed the Cubs for eighty years. It transpires, however, that Eddie has been lying and has never played for the Cubs. Even though Eddie eventually gets his wish when he pitches for the Chicago Cubs on Ray’s baseball field, he performs poorly and is devastated. So, even though Eddie gets what he wanted, it wasn’t what he needed to make him happy. 

“Ray, people toss around the phrase ‘Heaven on earth’ but it seems to me you’ve gotten a lock on it. Play it for all it’s worth.”

When Ray tells Richard that their father is present on the farm as a 25-year-old catcher for the White Sox team, Richard tells him that he will speak to their father and become his friend. Richard, who has not spoken to his father since he was 16, tells Ray that while other people can only think of a heaven on earth, Ray has been able to actually build one. Heaven is the place where people hope to fulfill their desires and meet their lost loved ones. Ray has created that opportunity for himself and for others by building the baseball field.

“No one asked me. It was instinct that caused me to build that door in the right-center-field fence, a very ordinary door that, from a distance, looks as if it was created by sawing the shape of a door into the finished fence.”(

The quote refers to the doorwhich the players leave through after the game, entering into the world that lies beyond. It is to this world that they invite Salinger to accompany them to, to give him an experience of their world beyond the baseball field. Ray finally returns to his home, along with his wife and daughter, after the dreams of everyone, including Ray, have been fulfilled.