James Earl Jones' famous 'Field of Dreams' speech had an impact way beyond baseball

James Earl Jones leaves behind a legacy as a fantastic actor, one who delivered a monologue that is still a rallying cry for baseball fans all over the world 35 years after it first came out.

Jones, who died Sept. 9 at the age of 93, played the cantankerous and fictitious reclusive author Terence Mann in 1989’s “Field of Dreams,” a tug-on-the-heartstrings drama that played up the bonds between fathers and sons and the power of chasing dreams.

Toward the end of the movie, Jones gives a moving speech, imploring Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella not to sell his Iowa farm, on which he gutted his cornfield to build a baseball field, even as it sends him into financial ruin.

In the speech, Jones eloquently reminds Kinsella that the public will support him, while Kinsella’s brother-in-law (Timothy Busfield) pressures him to cut ties to save himself.

“Ray, people will come, Ray,” Jones begins. “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.”

As James Horner’s Oscar-nominated score plays underneath, ramping up the emotion of the moment, Jones and his famous baritone voice continues, quietly advocating for the magic of the field.

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball,” he says.

“America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s 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 us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”

“Field of Dreams,” based on the 1982 W.P. Kinsella book “Shoeless Joe,” earned three Academy Award nominations and was chosen in 2017 for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. It should be noted that the Mann character was actually real-life author J.D. Salinger in the book. (Another fun fact: the movie also featured unknown teenagers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as extras.)

The film is part fantasy and part family drama, set against the challenges of life and baseball, our national pastime serving as the vessel to show the strength and importance of relationships and dreams, the simple act of playing catch a metaphor for the bonds dads and sons can have well into adulthood. It is known for making men cry. Its resonance has even led to major league games being played at the Iowa farm where the movie was shot.

Jones’ speech has an alchemy all of its own that has never gone away, one that Major League Baseball has seized, even as the decades have spilled over like a beer onto your shirt when you jump for joy after your favorite player hits a home run.

Several MLB players recited the speech in 2015. Vin Scully, the late legendary Los Angeles Dodgers announcer, also recited it. The script for it is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s as ingrained in the DNA of the game as taking a 3-0 pitch down the middle.

For years, it was Costner who had the reputation as the baseball-loving actor, starring in “Field of Dreams,” “Bull Durham” and “For Love of the Game.” It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jones’ impact on the speech in “Field of Dreams,” though, has been so monumental.

He also starred in baseball films “The Sandlot” (and its lesser-known sequel), as well as “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings.” Jones also won a Tony Award for his role as a former Negro Leagues star in the Broadway play "Fences."

In addition, he recited the national anthem prior to the 1993 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Heck, he also once did a reading of “Casey at the Bat.”

“Field of Dreams” remains the masterpiece, the standard, a signature moment in a stellar career that featured him voicing Darth Vader.

“If you’ve seen it, you know that this movie wouldn’t be the same with anyone else in his role,” Costner wrote about Jones’ part in the movie in an Instagram tribute after Jones' death.

“Only he could bring that kind of magic to a movie about baseball and a corn field in Iowa. I’m grateful to have been a witness to him making that magic happen.”

“If you build it, he will come,” moviegoers are told early in “Field of Dreams,” setting the stage for all of the magic that follows. There’s magic in movies and magic in baseball. Jones gave us both.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com