`FIELD OF DREAMS': THOUSANDS MAKE PILGRIMAGE TO FAMOUS FIELD

"This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that was good, and that could be good again.

Oh, people will come, Ray.

People will most definitely come."

From the movie "Field of Dreams"

DYERSVILLE, Iowa Each year as many as 40,000 people fulfill the famous promise: "If you build it they will come."

They come to the "Field of Dreams," the baseball park transformed into Americana by the movie of the same name.

"Everybody wants to come out and share the dream," says farmer Don Lansing, who owns about two-thirds of the "Field of Dreams."

Third base and left field belong to the Ameskamp family next door.

The field is located down a gravel road a few miles outside Dyersville. The ground here is a deep chocolate color. Guernsey cows sit on a nearby knoll watching people drive up to a fantasy.

The two owners keep the field in prime condition, and each family operates its own souvenir stand. Visitors pay no admission and are free to hit, run and play catch on the field.

Balls, bats and gloves can be rented if you've forgotten the essentials.

The field was created in five days during the movie's filming in the summer of 1988. It premiered in nearby Dubuque on April 20, 1989. A month later, the field's first pilgrim showed up at Lansing's farm.

He was a New Yorker on his way to California. "He said he wanted to see it before it was put back into corn," Lansing said.

"I was going to keep it whether people came or not," he said. "But I never expected it to get this big."

The Field of Dreams Ghost Players emerge from the corn field on the second to last Sunday of each month from May through September. On the last weekend of August, former Chicago Cubs host a fantasy baseball camp at the field.

People come from all over the world to see it all. On a Thursday two weeks ago, the visitors book had been signed by people from California, Houston and the Azores.

Lansing lives alone in the white farmhouse occupied by the movie's Ray Kinsella and his family. During filming, he moved into a trailer on the 100-acre farm.

Life hasn't changed that much for him; he still works for John Deere, and grows corn, oats and hay.

Lansing imagines that one reason people are so interested in seeing the field is the fear it will disappear one day just as the old ballplayers in the movie did.

How long will the "Field of Dreams" last? "As long as I'm here," Lansing said.