Alabama Bandits take the field at the famed movie site in Iowa to play in the Shoeless Joe tournament

Unlike the movie, no ghosts walked out from the tall stalks of an Iowa cornfield before a recent Field of Dreams tournament. For that matter, the ballplayers were not from a bygone era of America’s pastime either.

A dozen senior baseball players, most of whom are from Huntsville and the outlying areas, were part of a travel team that competed in a 50-and-older tournament last weekend in Dyersville. The Alabama Bandits played on the same ballfield where the Field of Dreams movie was filmed.

When asked by coaches Brett Graves and Kirby Gaudin if he would like to play in that tourney in Iowa, Tim Simmons, who plays with those guys on a Huntsville team in the Senior Southern Baseball League, responded enthusiastically.

“There was no question. I’m in,” he recalled, saying, “I’ve seen the movie several times.”

Graves had a feeling that kind of response was coming. Upon learning about the Shoeless Joe tourney while competing in a series in Arizona last year, Graves planned to ask some of his Alabama teammates to play in Iowa.

“I said I’d have no problem at all finding people,” he recollected.

The Bandits were among four 58-and-over teams, each of which got in three games in the Shoeless Joe tournament. The round-robin exhibition series commemorated Shoeless Joe Jackson, portrayed in the movie by the late Ray Liotta.

The 1989 movie was based on Canadian author W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe. Joseph Jackson (1887-1951), a key figure in the Black Sox Scandal that saw the heavily favored Chicago White Sox lose the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, was issued a lifetime ban from baseball by then-commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

The significance of playing on that field was not lost on the local contingent.

“It’s definitely a bucket-list experience,” said Barry Hill, a 60-year-old first baseman.

“We watched the movie (at the Field of Dreams Museum) and dreamed of getting out on the field,” Graves said.

Despite checking out the cornfield on the perimeter of the outfield, none of the local ballplayers said they saw any ghosts in baseball uniforms.

Nonetheless, in the movie the ghosts of the players involved in the Black Sox Scandal walked out of the cornfield to play a baseball game. The Bandits, as well as other teams in the tournament, got to do just that.

“To actually come out of the cornfield, that was pretty cool,” said Tim Simmons, a versatile ballplayer who got to line up in left field, at second base and even some behind the plate. “There’s nothing like it, especially playing where we were.”

“Coming out of the cornfield,” Graves recalled as one of his favorite aspects of the whole experience, adding the movie’s slogan, “If you build it they will come.”

As a center fielder, Fred Dinger appreciated the nostalgia of his position, which he noted proved to be a bit more thrilling than what the infielders and battery mates at pitcher and catcher experienced.

“Magical” is how Dinger described taking his position in the outfield. “You stand out there and there’s the cornfield right behind you. It was amazing.”

Added Hill, “I wanted to play in the outfield so I could go in the corn.”

Graves noted that the players were only allowed to walk about five feet into the cornfield, saying, “They didn’t want you destroying the crops.”

As was the case for many teams from other parts of the country, there were plenty of wives and girlfriends, as well as other family members who made the trip to the famed site in Iowa. The small contingent who went to support the Bandits included Kim Minkinow, Kim Hill, Stephanie Gonder, Brandi Tomanio, Sandra Simmons and Nancy Webb.

“I loved the environment,” said Minkinow, who is plenty active herself as president of the Huntsville Pickleball Club. “It was like you were watching a game in someone’s back yard. It was like being in the movie because you had these older guys. It was pretty neat.”

As for the games, the Bandits won two of three in the brief series of exhibitions. Alabama opened the tourney with a decisive defeat of 14-3 victory over the Kansas City Monarchs.

“We kind of jumped on them early and kept it going,” Graves said.

The closest game came against the Cubs with the Bandits rallying from a two-run deficit in the final inning to pull out a 9-8 comeback win. Gaudin bunted with the bases loaded and Jay Dana slid home with the tying run. Simmons had the game-winning hit, a single to left-center field, that scored Kelly Copeland.

For Graves, who played with the Cubs in a previous tourney, that victory was especially rewarding.

“It was my goal to beat them,” he said, adding, “You’re on a movie set and you win. You can’t ask for anything better than that.”

After winning the first two games, Alabama came up short in the series finale, an 11-7 loss to Racine.

The primary pitches for the Bandits were Gaudin, Randy Bolton and Dave McClure. Rounding out the roster were John Tomanio, Tommy Gonder, Roberto Alvarez and Carl Groves.

The trip to Iowa also was a bit of a homecoming for Graves, whose grandparents lived nearby. At 61, he recalled playing catch with his father at the Field of Dreams location 25 years ago.

“It was pretty cool and now we get to come and play on this field,” he said.

While most of the Bandits hail from the Huntsville area, two came from Texas and another was from Tennessee. That core group has played and won numerous tourneys throughout the country, including World Series titles in Las Vegas in 2019 and Phoenix in 2022. They have even played in Puerto Rico.

In November, most of the Bandits will head to Florida to play in the Roy Hobbs Series in Fort Myers, spring training home of the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins.

“We’ve got a good core who travel a lot,” Graves said. “It’s a lot of fun. Every one of us just loves being out there playing baseball. The team’s been together for years.”

Hill echoed a familiar refrain about being able to still play a game he learned as a youngster.

“It was just the feeling of being a kid,” he said of playing in the Shoeless Joe series. “Just the nostalgia of it, having seen (the movie) on TV.”

Added Gaudin, “It’s kind of like being a kid again. There’s no real fence on the sidelines. Everyone’s just out there having fun. Every time we step on a field at this age it’s a pretty nice experience.”

Gaudin also relished a fan base that he referred to as “a busload of tourists. They were watching our game like we were somebody.”