His field of dreams becomes a reality
COLUMN By NATE WILKINSON
The York Dispatch
Monday, April 18, 2005

The dream lies 300 feet down the foul line and 400 feet to straightaway center.

It's what Brad Shover envisioned when the insurance business was getting boring. It's what he wanted after he sold his minor-league baseball team and freed himself from all of its commitments.

Shover always wanted to do something with baseball. Something similar to what happened in the movie "Field of Dreams," when Iowa farmer Kevin Costner plowed under his crops and turned a cornfield into a baseball field.

Shover had to find the land first. He wanted something rural. Some place where turnpike traffic wouldn't fly past, where power lines wouldn't muck up the skyline overhead.

It took a while. Then a friend told Shover about an old dairy near Carlisle, 90 acres of land that hadn't been used in years.

"As soon as I saw it, that was the end of that," Shover said. "I knew this was the spot."

The dream finally had an address. But then the real work began. Shover had to turn a defunct dairy farm into his dream, a bed and breakfast with a baseball field that would attract people from all over the country -- has-beens and never-weres, athletes in their prime and those just looking to recapture it for a bit. He had to turn pastures into a playing field and a horse barn into a locker room.

The 52 year old started building Doubleday Farm in Landisburg about 10 years ago. He sold his Phillies affiliate in Spartanburg, S.C., and ended his career in insurance after 20 years.

He built it. And they've been coming ever since.

Some people come to relax, to spend a week in the country riding horses and reveling in the mountains. Others come to rekindle the memories of lost youth, to play baseball with the handful of major leaguers Shover brings in every season.

Some of them ran out with Tug McGraw on a late-night ice cream run. Some had breakfast with Fergie Jenkins. Others played baseball with John Kruk, who was determined to bat cleanup for both teams, acquiring about 150 at-bats during his stay at Doubleday.

The dream will enter its eighth season this summer.

"Wild Thing" Mitch Williams is coming in June. Lee Smith, baseball's all-time leader in saves, is coming in late July. Ten other major leaguers will show up in Landisburg this summer, on the baseball diamond born from a dairy farm, the playing field birthed from a pasture.

It's what Brad Shover envisioned when the insurance business was getting boring. It's what he wanted after he sold his minor-league baseball team and freed himself from all of its commitments.

The dream lies 300 feet down the foul line and 400 feet to straightaway center.

Nate Wilkinson is a sportswriter for the York Dispatch. He can be reached at 505-5406 or nwilkinson@yorkdispatch.com. For more info, visit www.doubledayfarm.com.