Quote:
Originally Posted by JBirkholm
Nobody would care about Graham if not for the movie. Kinsella could have picked another great baseball name, such as Icehouse Wilson from the 1934 Tigers, and revolved the plot around him, thereby etching a different obscure player's name into the memory banks of modern-day fans. It bothers me how much Graham's memorabilia fetches just because an author plucked him out of the 15,000+ players who have made the big time. Yes, the real Archie Graham was a doctor who lived in Chisholm, MN and had a wife name Alicia. For all we know, she really could have favored blue hats. As someone who thinks every player's biography is equally important to preserve, the hype has always bothered me. After all, people don't collect Babe Ruth material because they're huge William Bendix or John Goodman fans; why collect Moonlight memorabilia because you`re enamored with either Kinsella`s book or Burt Lancaster`s preformance? Oddly, Eddie Waitkus memorabilia never really skyrocketed because his case was the basis for The Natural.
(Yes, we`ve debated this one before. I realize all of the Moonlight devotees have passionate reasons for craving this sort of material, but I`ll never understand why!)
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The film touched peoples' hearts; it idealizes baseball and what it means to people who are crazed enough to spend big on cardboard, and they want to touch some part of that magic in their collections:
"Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."