"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."

W.P. Kinsella, the Canadian author of Shoeless Joe- the book that became the movie Field of Dreams- walked into the corn with the players Friday, after a long illness. He was 81 years old and had long enjoyed seeing one of his thirty books become a perennial classic.

Kinsella's masterpiece was inspired by a Baseball Encyclopedia entry he read about a player called Moonlight Graham, who played in only one major league game and didn't get to bat in that one.

Dr Archibald Graham, as he was known for half a century in Chisholm, Minnesota, was a North Carolina native who played baseball for UNC-Chapel Hill. After starting with the Charlotte Hornets, he worked his way through the minors for seven seasons. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1905, and died sixty years later, a beloved figure in his adopted hometown. Among his siblings was the late UNC President and US Senator Frank Porter Graham, the victim of Jesse Helms first of many smear campaigns when he sought re-election in 1950.

Of Kinsella, The Guardian wrote today, "Much of Kinsella’s work touched on baseball. He published almost 30 books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry and won the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest honors.

"William Patrick Kinsella was born in Edmonton, Alberta. His father John had played minor league baseball, and the young Kinsella fell for the game playing with friends on sandlots in Edmonton.

"He began writing as a child, winning a YMCA contest at age 14.

"Kinsella took writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving his bachelor of arts in creative writing in 1974. In 1978 he earned a master of fine arts in English through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

"He had been an English professor at the University of Calgary."