Tag: Field of Dreams

Sept 4: One up on “Moonlight”

SEPTEMBER 4, 1933 | DETROIT, MICHIGAN • Twenty-one year old Merritt Lovett came to bat for the Chicago White Sox on this date in 1933. He did not reach base. It would be “Mem” Lovett’s only major league at bat.

Lovett was at least one up on Archibald “Moonlight” Graham. Graham was the character Burt Lancaster played in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams. Graham played one inning for the New York Giants on the last day of the 1904 season, but never came to bat. Rather than be sent down to the minors again, Graham quit professional baseball and went to medical school. He spent the rest of his life delivering babies and generally attending to the medical needs of the residents of Chisholm, Minnesota. 

In Field of Dreams, Graham, played by Frank Whaley as a young man, was granted one at bat against major leaguers who appeared on a baseball diamond an Iowa farmer carved out of his corn field.

Most of the film, Field of Dreams was fiction, based on the book Shoeless Joe by Ray Kinsella, but Moonlight Graham was a real life person. So was Merritt Lovett. He followed a similar path as Graham. He decided to do something to help others. Lovett, a native of Oak Park, Illinois and a University of Chicago graduate, soon quit professional baseball and turned his attention to youngsters in his hometown. He spent a number of years running the Oak Park recreation department.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Wednesday Journal, Oak Park, IL, October 27, 2004
Chicago Tribune, June 10, 2006, Mike Downey

June 29 IN BASEBALL HISTORY – “Moonlight” Graham: The real story

JUNE 29, 1905 | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – It’s the stuff of legend, except it’s true. In the late innings on this date in 1905, Archibald Graham made his major league debut in right field for the New York Giants. They were playing the Brooklyn Superbas (today’s Los Angeles Dodgers). The game ended a couple innings later with the Giants winning 11-1. Graham did not come to bat. He never got another chance. “Moonlight” Graham was sent down to the minors after the game, but he decided that at the age of 28 he had spent enough time in the minors. Rather than report to the Giants farm team, again, he called it a career. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham came oh so close to batting in a major league game, but it was not to be, until Hollywood came calling long after his death.

“Moonlight” Graham was a key character in the movie, Field of Dreams. The film was fiction, but the “Moonlight” Graham part, played by Burt Lancaster, was real. Well, most of it was real. Graham really did become a doctor in Chisholm, Minnesota, but the part about a young Archie Graham, played by Frank Whaley, living out his dream by coming to bat against the re-incarnated Black Sox remains a dream.

“Moonlight” Graham had a distinctly short, and let’s be honest, insignificant, stint in the major leagues, until author W. P. Kinsella came across his statistics:

Archibald Moonlight Graham:
Batting record
Year team G AB R H RBI BB SB AVE  OBP  SLG
1905 NYn  1  0 0 0  0  0  0 .000 .000 .000

Kinsella was intrigued about a man who came so close to living out his dream that he put the character in his book of fiction, Shoeless Joe, which the movie, “Field of Dreams” is based on. Unfortunately, Archibald “Moonlight” Graham never found out how well known he became. The Fayetteville, North Carolina native died in Chisholm, Minnesota in 1965.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Archibald Moonlight Graham stats
Associated Press, June 25, 2005 Read more about Moonlight Graham
USA Today, June 25, 2005