Building the Field for Someone Else

This week, Mike Van Pelt breaks down the emotional Field of Dreams Game footage of Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey Jr., and other big leaguers having real catches with their fathers and sons, and asks the question underneath all of it: what does a man do when that catch never came, or never will? It's an honest look at the ache so many men carry silently, and a practical challenge for turning that ache into presence for the next generation. 

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https://www.AmericanFamilyRenaissance.Org/ 

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https://www.AmericanFamilyRenaissance.ORG/TtrueManLifecoaching/Books/True-Man-True-Ways/ 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the True Man Podcast. This is an invitation to radical reconstruction of a man's masculine heart and soul in a place of safe community where we dare to ask questions deep seated inside a man and explore ways to help you become a better man, a better son, a better dad, and a better spouse. Well, welcome back to the true man podcast. Boy, last week on episode 252, I had so much fun talking about Field of Dreams. Well, I thought I'd go ahead and follow it up because boy, I, you know, when I watch the Major League Baseball game that they play now annually, it looks like on Field of Dream Dreams. Uh, watch the twins and the Phillip Phillies play. And boy, it really hit a nerve with me. Uh just far more than a baseball game. Uh, it was a moment but uh uh to watch for sure. More on that in a second. But real quick, let's talk about the power of asking help, the American Family Renaissance Summit that will be released on September 14th. Boy, now is the time to act. This summit is going to feature eight great speakers, including myself and also Scott Schilling, Jim Britt, Bob Tede, Bob Bodine, Vince Miller, and Chris Widener, who you've heard me talk a little bit about next week. But stick around. Today, we are going to introduce you to Tom Ziggler, the son of legendary speaker Zig Ziggler, who will be joining us on that summit. One of the many reasons you should go out and sign up for this great free event. Boy, you want to take advantage of the wisdom that's going to be coming at you from these guys. And of course, Tom, uh, Tom was just absolutely fantastic. But uh sign up. Uh, this that we're gonna have to sign up here in the show notes, but you can certainly go out to my website, American FamilyRenaissance.org. You can read a lot more about what's going on in the summit, and uh you can sign up there as well. All right, well, let's continue talking about Field of Dreams because once I watched the game uh here between the Phillies and the Twins, I just had realized I had so much more to share about this great annual event that has started. They have built some kind of super nice stadium there. It's really turned into uh more of just the actual movie set. You've got the major league field, and then you've got a tournament area where they're gonna be hosting things right there in the middle of Cornfield. I'll tell you what, uh, what a great thing to see and do. So if you ever have a chance to get to Dyersville, Iowa, no, nobody's paying for me that uh to say this. Uh, I would recommend you go. But enough of that. Let's uh let's start with a familiar line here today. Hey dad, you want to have a catch. That's the line, you know. So if you've seen Field of Dreams, you know, you know that one. And this week I watched grown men, big leaguers, all-stars, guys who have made more money and won more trophies than most of us will see in a lifetime. Watched them stand there like many of you who watched it on television, on the and uh, you know, what a great thing to watch. But you know, it was fantastic to have an opportunity to stand there on the movie set field in Dyersville, Iowa, just a few short days ago. And uh boy, to see those guys live out uh really what a kid's dream to some degree is really, really cool. Now, some of those guys, they were just smiling from ear to ear if you took that game in. And if you look close, some of them, some of them were fighting back tears for sure. But I'm gonna talk today about why uh this topic, I believe, is so important because it's more than baseball. So, as I have mentioned here over the last couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to go to Dyersville, take a trip and see Field of Dreams, and uh had the opportunity, of course, to have a catch with my dad on that exact Grassfield movie set. And what did it mean to me? Uh, you know, what a great day. And I said that day would live in my memory forever, and I meant it. And then this week, uh, got the opportunity to watch the Major League Baseball game that went back to Dyersville. And uh, you know, Netflix, it was on Netflix, Fox, Major League Baseball put out a ton of clips after that game. And it is so the it just lives on. But much of it really hit me. And here's why. You know, Roger Clemens is a perfect example here, although he's not in the Hall of Fame. He certainly has the arm and the resume for it. He's one of the most decorated pitchers who ever played the game of baseball. But he put on his old Red Sox jersey and walked out onto the field with his son Cody, who actually happens to play for the Twins. And they just had a catch. And Cody said afterward, it was all his dad's idea. He wanted to emulate the movie scene with his dad and Kevin Costner. And Cody said, Man, I was all for it. Just think about that for a second. A guy with a big resume, a guy who's thrown a baseball in front of sold-out stadiums his whole life. And the moment he wanted, the moment his own son said was hilarious and unforgettable was just playing catch with his boy in a cornfield diamond in Iowa. And it's not the first time that's happened. Back in 2022, you may remember Ken Griffey Jr., one of the greatest to ever swing the bat, walked out onto the same cornfield with his father, Ken Griffey Sr. And Junior asked him the exact line from the movie, hey dad, want to have a catch? And of course, senior answered, I'd like that. And they did it right there in front of a stadium full of strangers, and it became one of the moments that people are still talking about all these years later. Now, before the game this year, two dozen Hall of Famers walked out of the corn together. Uh, and player after player, Bryce Harper, Bryce Buxton, Derek Shelton, too many to name, stood there and talked about watching that movie with their own dads growing up. And one of them said, walking out there, it felt like things slowed down. Another said he made sure that when he crossed the chalk line, he didn't turn into a normal human being. He wanted to feel it, all of it, like a kid again. And then, of course, Kyle Sherber uh went out and hit two home runs during the game into the actual cornfield to help the Phillies beat the twins seven to one, which look is a great story all of its own. But it wasn't the score anybody was talking about afterward. No, it was the catches, it was the fathers and the sons together having those catches. And here's what I want you to sit with. These are men who have already achieved almost everything our culture tells a man he's supposed to want, right? Money, fame, championships, their names in the record book. And the moment that undid them, the moment that actually got them emotional in front of a national television audience wasn't a trophy. It was a game of catch with their father. And that really tells you something about every man I think listening to this podcast today, whether you've ever picked up a baseball glove or not, underneath whatever we built the career, the title, the bank account, the reputation, there's a little boy in every one of us still asking one question. Did my dad show up for me? Am I seen by him? Am I enough for him? And here's the part of the story that doesn't make the highlight real. You know, for every Roger and Cody Clemens moment this week, there's a man watching that clip whose stomach just dropped, a man whose dad is gone, a man whose dad was never around to have that catch in the first place, a man who watched that footage and felt something that's closer to grief than joy. And if that's you, I don't want you to rush past this. I want you to name it. Name it plainly. That ache that you feel is real, and it's not a weakness, it's the exact same longing those big leaguers were feeling. You just didn't get the ending that they got. Now, I've talked to enough men over the years to know this story comes in more than one version. Some men never got the catch because their dad was working every waking hour trying to provide. And by the time he had energy left over, there wasn't much left for a game in the backyard. Some men never got it because their dad wasn't emotionally present, even when he was standing right there, physically in the room, a thousand miles away in every other sense. Some men never got it because their father is already gone. And whatever chance existed for that conversation, that reconciliation, that literal catch, well, it left with him. And some men never got it because the relationship broke somewhere along the way, and neither side has figured out how to be the one to reach back out first. Well, I want to be straight with you on something. Ray Kinsella's story in the movie Filled of Dreams is beautiful, but it's also fictional. You see, real life doesn't always hand a man a voice in a cornfield and a second chance at the ending. Sometimes the catch you needed simply isn't coming. And no amount of longing changes that. Because it's the whole reason I wanted to record this episode. The story was never really about getting the catch back. It was about what a man does with the ache once he's honest about it. So again, Ray Kinsella in the movie Filled of Dreams, he spent the whole movie trying to reach backward, chasing down a way to reconcile with a father he'd lost the chance to fully know. What he actually built, though, wasn't just a reunion. It was a field that other fathers and sons could walk on to for generations after him, just like I did. That's the part of the ending that people forget. Those cars streaming toward the field at the end, they weren't just there for Ray. They were coming because Ray built something that would outlast his own story. You see, that's the invitation for every man listening to this who didn't get his own catch. You may not be able to go backward, but you can absolutely go forward. You can be the father who shows up, the uncle who takes the nephew fishing, the coach who notices, the kid nobody else notices, the mentor who has the catch with a young man whose own dad never learned how. You know, I think about the Griffeys. Hey dad, you want to have a catch? I'd like that. Four words, and a whole relationship gets affirmed in that exchange. You don't need a movie set and a national television audience to have that conversation. You need a backyard with 20 minutes and the willingness to ask the question first. If your dad is still living and that door isn't fully closed, I'd encourage you, reach out and ask for the catch, literally or figuratively. You know, life is short, and that window does not stay open forever. You know that. But if that door is closed, either because he's gone or because the relationship never healed, don't let that be the end of your story. Let it be the reason you build the field for somebody else. I don't want to leave you with just an emotional moment. I want to leave you with something to actually do this week because I think that's important. If your father is le living, call him. Don't overthink the words. You don't need a speech. Hey, you want to grab a coffee or hey, you want to come watch the game? It's your own version of you want to have a catch? Just initiate it. Don't wait for him to make the first move. A lot of our fathers were never taught how. Now, if your father's gone or the relationship is unreachable, find one young man in your life this week. A son, a nephew, a kid on the street, a guy you mentor, and give him 20 minutes of your full undistracted attention. Phone away, put it away, maybe don't even take it to the table. Nowhere else to be. That's the catch. That's what it actually is underneath the baseball metaphor. Present without an agenda. Either way, stop waiting for the perfect cinematic version of this moment. Most of us are never going to get a cornfield and a Netflix camera crew. We get a driveway, a couch, a phone call on Tuesday, and you know what? That's enough. That's always been enough. You know, Roger Clemens didn't wait for someone to build that moment for him. He said it was his all his idea, meaning he made the call. He put the jersey on. He asked his son. One of the games greats. And the biggest highlight of the week was just showing up to simply have a catch. You see, you don't need a Hall of Fame career to do the same thing. You just need to be willing to ask the question. Well, I man, I have had so much fun talking about this. So much fun. There's so many great clips out there. Um, this is where you get an opportunity to go out and use the internet for good. You can go out and catch some of those, and we'll put some of those uh in the show notes and in the blog for you to uh take a look at. But before I let you go this week, I want to tell you about another man joining us on stage for the American Family Renaissance Summit on September 14th. Tom Ziggler. Now, if that last name sounds familiar, well, it should. It should. Tom is a son of Zig Ziggler, and he is the CEO of Ziggler Inc., which means he's carrying forward one of the most powerful legacies in American motivation. See, for decades, Zig Ziggler's voice shaped how an entire generation of men thought about character and integrity and what it actually means to succeed. And Tom didn't just inherit a company, he inherited a mission. And he spent his career making sure that mission speaks directly to men about faith, character, family, and the kind of performance that actually flows out of those things instead of performance that's chasing them. So Tom is a best-selling author and a speaker in his own right. He's host of the Ziggler Show podcast and a champion of faith-centered success principles in a marketplace that's mostly forgotten what the phrase even means anymore. Tom has spent his life proving something, I believe, uh, with everything in me, that a man doesn't have to choose between faith and ambition. The two were never supposed to be separated in the first place. So here's why I wanted him on this summit with us. Tom represents exactly the kind of generational thread that we're trying to build at this summit. A man who took what his father poured into him and didn't let it end with one generation. You see, that's the whole heartbeat of the American family renaissance. Restoring the family isn't a one-time event. It's something that a man builds, protects, and hands down the same way Zig handed his legacy to Tom and his two sisters. So on September 14th, when Tom steps up to speak, I want you to listen for that same thread. Faith producing character, character producing real, sustainable success in one generation faithfully handing off to the next. If you haven't signed up for the summit yet, again, we're going to put this in the show notes and feel free to go out to the American Family Renaissance.org. You will find this the uh sign up for that there. And we're gonna have some great things, uh, the options for you after the uh September 14th release of the American Family Renaissance Summit. But I'll tell you what, if you're looking for more wisdom in your life, you're gonna find them from these eight incredible speakers who I just had a blast with. Well, I hope you enjoyed uh today's episode of the True Man Podcast, episode number two hundred and fifty-three. Like I said, it's been so much fun to talk about Field of Dreams, and we'll come up with something for you next week that is equally as good, I'm sure. Well, thank you for listening. Uh, if you enjoyed this episode of the True Man Podcast, please go out and leave me a great review on your favorite podcast channel. And I want to encourage you, reach out, reach out to your son, your father, or another man, and just take 20 minutes, invest in them, invest in them, and you will appreciate that giving spirit. With that, thank you for listening. God bless you, and go out and make this your very, very best day ever.