Goin' Bohlen: Stealing Dreams

What would you give to run onto a major league baseball field and slide into second base? $100 to a charity? Your left pinky toe? Your first-born? How about a night in jail?

On Monday night, in the home regular-season finale for the Boston Red Sox, an unidentified fan ran out of the right-field stands and slid head-first into second base to a resounding cheer from the Fenway faithful--a cheer that is usually reserved for ace pitcher Pedro Martinez.

Once he wrapped his arms around second and gave it a quick hug, he was escorted from the field by Fenway security and presumably was booked at the nearest precinct headquarters.

So now the fan has a police record.

But he's also got a great story to go with it.

Anytime anyone asks about his record, he will get more of "What was it like?" than "What were you thinking?"

The fan, who probably wasn't more than 18 years old, did something nearly all of the 33,000 gathered would love to do just once.

There is not one baseball fan who, as a young boy or girl, did not desperately want to play just one inning of one game in the major leagues.

And because of this desire, anyone who lives the dream earns our respect.

Much like a one-hit wonder on the FM dial, we have glorified even the most obscure professional baseball players because they have lived the dream of actually being on the field, even if for only an at-bat or a half-inning in center field.

You may or may not have heard of Eddie Gaedel. At 3'7, he is the shortest person ever to play in a major-league game. In a stunt in 1951, Bill Veeck, owner of the St. Louis Browns, sent Gaedel to bat. He instructed Gaedel to stand at the plate and not swing and Gaedel promptly walked on four pitches.

And while Gaedel never again appeared in a game, he went down in the Guiness Book of World Records as the shortest person ever to play in the major leagues. His picture is surely somewhere in Cooperstown.

In the movie "Field of Dreams," the character of Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham is shown as a tender-hearted old man who once played in one inning of a major-league game but never got to bat and never figured into a defensive play.

"It was like coming this close to your dreams, and then watch them brush past you like a stranger in a crowd," Burt Lancaster, as Graham, says of his moment in the majors.

So Ray Kinsella, Costner's character, brings Graham to Iowa and gives him the chance to live his fantasy by playing on the aptly-named Field of Dreams with his baseball heroes.

In the movie, Graham's character shows the childish quality of baseball. It is not childish in a negative way but rather, shows idealism and innocence.

Moonlight Graham actually did exist and, although some of the facts of his life were changed for the movie, he did only play in one major-league inning and never made it to the plate.

And more people know his name than, say, that of Harry Heilmann, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

So the Fenway fan shouldn't be scorned for his actions. He can now live the rest of his life knowing that there is something separating him from 99.9 percent of the American population. He will be able to tell his grandchildren he was on the same field as the big boys.

I've been on a major league baseball field before. Actually, twice. Once was during a tour of the now-deceased Kingdome in Seattle and the other was on a tour of SkyDome in Toronto. Both were exciting in their own right, but it's just not the same without the screaming legions supporting you.

I'm not sure if I would do what the unknown fan did on Monday, but I at least know where he was coming from.

And it wasn't left field.