Shoeless Joe

I'm currently reading the book Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, which the movie Field of Dreams is based on. Field of Dreams is a great movie, and the book is equally great so far, but different. One major difference is that the kidnapped writer is not some fictional '60s radical, but instead is J.D. Salinger, the very real (albeit in a fictcional account) author of Catcher in the Rye, which is a great high school read. (Enough with the "greats;" they're getting grating.)

Anyhow, I'm talking to Dr. Dee last night about my last post on Randy Moss (incidentally, which has been published on this Web site, where you get the most insightful, unbiased Bills coverage in the world), and he comments that I have always had good insight into Randy Moss. Intersting. Then, I'm reading Shoeless Joe and on page 84 (Moss' old number with the Vikes, who are Dr. Dee's favorite team), I came across this passage, which made me think of Dr. Dee:

(The narrator and Salinger are at Fenway Park watching a Red Sox game, and the narrator is trying to encourage Salinger's passion for baseball). "Look around at the fans, count their warts just as they count ours; look at them waddle and stuff their faces and cheer with their mouths full. We're not just ordinary people, we're a congregation. Baseball is a ceremony, a ritual, as surely as sacrificing a goat beneath a full moon is a ritual. The only difference is that most of us realize that it is a game. Good writing is a ritual, I've been told, so many words or so many pages a day. You must know that..."

The funny thing is this whole number, interconnected universe, tumblers coming together and opening up a peak into what could be --- well, this all plays in with the theme of Shoeless Joe.

Cheers.

Ralph