Field of Dreams ‘Ghost Player’ still hopes game will be played

By John Burbridge
sports@charlescitypress.com
The first time Paul Scherrman saw Field of Dreams, the plot sailed over his head like a misjudged fly ball.

“I didn’t follow the story that much,” Scherrman said. “I was mainly looking to see if any of the parts I was in made it into the movie.”

Scherrman did get to see glimpses of himself on the big screen.

“It was also a thrill to see my name in the closing credits,” said Scherrman, who was on the set 21 days in Dyersville, Iowa as one of the “Ghost Player” extras.

“When you’re making a movie as an extra, you have no idea about what the story is about,” Scherrman said. “They don’t always film scenes in sequence … like the end of the film may be shot ahead of the beginning of the film.

“When I saw the movie again — and I’ve seen it about 100 times since — I realized it had a pretty good story there with a strong message. But I couldn’t really say that I knew the movie would have such a lasting impact to where more than 30 years later there would be a real major league game played at the site.”

The status of the Field of Dreams Game featuring the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox is still more in the “when” category than “if”. The game is scheduled for Aug. 13 at the Dyersville movie site. Despite the MLB season at least another month away from its belated opener due to the ongoing pandemic, the game is still on.

“There has been talk about them moving it back to September,” Scherrman said, “but if this lockout lasts much longer, it would be difficult to even get a meaningful season in. They may end up having to do this next year.”

Still for the field from which the game will eventually be played, the recent timing couldn’t have been better.
“They just put down the last layers of sod, and two days later it rained,” Scherrman said a little over a week ago. “That’s perfect if you want the sod to best take to the soil.

“I was just out there the other day, and the field looks beautiful.”

Though Scherrman is not among the crew physically building the field for the Yankees and White Sox to come, he’s very much part of the project as his family business, J.P. Scherrman, Inc., has provided the Bobcat tractors used to make the “dream-like” ballpark.

As is the case with most sports-related movies, auditions for Field of Dreams extras were more like “tryouts” with athleticism and skill requisites for making the team … or getting a part.

“If you’re going to be in a movie where you’re playing baseball, you should be able to throw and catch like you actually played the game,” Scherrman said. “They sent notices around the Dubuque area looking for men ages 30 to 40 to ‘try out’ for player extras.”

A former minor leaguer who played in the Washington Senators organization back in the early 1970s, Scherrman was closer to Minnie Minoso’s final-season playing age than Bartolo Colon’s (pending) when he tried out for the Ghost Players. But as a guy who played semi-pro baseball until he was 53 year old, Scherrman apparently had the veteran experience the “ghosts” were looking for — similar to why the Durham Bulls signed “Crash” Davis from another Kevin Costner baseball movie — and was put behind the plate.

“I was known in the area as a player and coach,” said Scherrman, a Dubuque County Baseball Hall of Famer who is still involved in semi-pro baseball as the manager for the Farley Hawks. “They wanted me to help with the tryouts for the pitchers. I ended up getting a part for one of the catchers.”

Scherrman has been a Ghost Player ever since.

He and several other Field of Dreams vets have reprised their Ghost Player roles traveling around the globe to provide skill and leadership training to children of all ages.

“We do these comedy skits while incorporating positive lessons,” said Schermann, who also serves on the Board of Directors for the Team of Dreams Labor Day Event at the Field of Dreams movie site.

In addition to being the Charter President of the Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Semi-Pro Baseball League, where the Farley Hawks play, Scherrman is also on the Board of Directors for the Roberto Clemente Foundation, which provides baseball clinics for at-risk youths as well as disaster relief in the spirit of its namesake hall-of-famer, who died in a plane crash New Year’s Eve in 1972 while en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Unless the Yankees and White Sox themselves hold tryouts for former pro player contemporaries of Clemente, Scherrman will likely not be coming out of the cornfield to play another Field of Dreams game whenever that will be.

There was supposed to be a week-long festival of activities in Dyersville leading up to the game. Scherrman’s Ghost Players were due to be part of this festival, but circumstances have made such precursor activities doubtful.

“I doubt if I can get tickets or passes for the game, or even if they’re going to have fans at the game,” he said. “But if they do have fans, I hope they have a lottery to give everyone a chance to get tickets, not just people with the most money.”

Indeed, if we can alleviate the money factor from the Field of Dreams Game, it can only serve as redemption for the real Ghost Players who got into a little filthy lucre trouble while they were still living