Inner-City Kids From Philadelphia Build Dreams By Iowa Cornstalks Children Glorify Robinson At Famous Country Diamond

About 50 miles from the banks of the Mississippi, in a place where the cows and horses seemingly outnumber the people, two rustic farms share not only a field of corn, but also the Field of Dreams.

This is where Hollywood crews came to carve out a baseball diamond nine years ago for a movie that made a legend of W.P. Kinsella’s beckoning call - “Build it, and they will come.”

Approximately 50,000 tourists a year have come ever since, most with visions of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s specter again the star.

But on Thursday, that changed when 15 ballplayers from South Philadelphia, ages 8 to 12, pursued heroes who mostly never had the chance of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the White Sox players whose careers were forfeited because of a gambling scandal that tainted the 1919 World Series.

These children, mostly black, were on a mission to honor Negro League players. Like Josh Gibson. Cool Papa Bell. Satchel Paige. And especially Jackie Robinson, the first black man permitted in the modern major leagues. The kids were barnstorming to Kansas City and the Negro League Museum, and this was a 400-mile leg of their 10-city, 13-day journey.

The youngsters play in the Jackie Robinson League of the national program RBI (Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities). Their league is sponsored by the Phillies and several Philadelphia-area corporations, who also helped pay for the current trip.

The youngsters, representing the Marian Anderson Recreation Center, and their eight coaches and chaperones pulled up to the field in their authentic 1947 Flxible bus. And when they emerged, gloves and bats in hand, they stepped into a world that may have measured 1,400 miles from home but seemed more like a whole universe away.

They looked out to fields where corn stood that would not be harvested until October but was still, in some instances, higher than they. “I’ve never seen corn grow before,” one of the players said as he traipsed toward the corn rows. Another nodded in solemn agreement.

Still, the children of the city stood tall, folding their new experiences into their memory banks as easily as they folded Hollywood fantasy into their real-life quest.

Dressed in pinstriped pants and navy blue tops with the word “Monarchs” in script, the name of Robinson’s Negro League team in Kansas City, the kids had obviously come to play. But they had also come to remember, even while understanding the larger attraction of the famous field and corn rows.

“I was looking for Shoeless Joe - and Jackie Robinson,” said Ali Mapp, 10. “If I saw Jackie Robinson, I would have told him thank you for doing what he did for black people. If it wasn’t for him, we probably wouldn’t be here, because of racism.”

But do not think that Robinson was the only ghost these children hoped to stumble across. “I wanted to see Shoeless Joe,” agreed 10-year-old Bilal Rogers. “Both were great ballplayers. Both led their teams to the World Series.”

So for one day, the heroes played in the minds of children in a way the reality of any year between 1919 and 1947 would not have permitted. And these children, who had learned so much about their past in preparation for their trip, brought Robinson’s lesson to Shoeless Joe’s field.

For the Monarchs spread out and hit, ran the bases and chased fly balls into the corn, the usual activities permitted on a field where only flights of fancy, as opposed to organized games, are allowed. “The corn stalks hit you in the eye and felt itchy,” said Mapp, who nonetheless joined in the romps between stints of precise hitting and good fielding.

And as the Monarchs played, other tourists not only marveled. They joined in. Tourists, young and old, boys and girls, whose complexions and the addresses they jotted in the guest book located behind the backstop suggested backgrounds far different from those of the kids.

And in that moment, the field accomplished what Robinson sought 50 years before, making a sport color-blind and leaving only the game as the true measuring stick.