John Grisham's Field of Dreams

Although novelist John Grisham has created some unforgettable places in his best-selling legal thrillers, perhaps none is more magical than Cove Creek Park, the real-life Little League baseball park that he built amidst Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains.

Although novelist John Grisham has created some unforgettable places in his best-selling legal thrillers, perhaps none is more magical than Cove Creek Park, the real-life Little League baseball park that he built amidst Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains.

Cove Creek Park, where Grisham serves as commissioner, is heaven on earth for the boys and girls in Covesville, Va., and surrounding communities south of Charlottesville. With its seven impeccably manicured fields lined with crushed gravel warning tracks, the 40-acre Cove Creek Park rivals the best Little League facilities in the nation.

However, few parks come close to the breathtaking surroundings offered by Cove Creek, nestled among three expansive mountain ridges. This lush protective border creates a quiet stillness that’s only dissipated by the soft rhythm of water sprinklers and light melodies of chirping birds.

“It’s like walking into a dream, really,” says Jennifer Williams, park manager. “People who just enjoy baseball will come out on a Saturday and watch a game. They’ll come get a hot dog or hamburger because the atmosphere is good. That starts with him and his expectations and it trickles down to everyone else.”

However, Grisham’s field of dreams was not created from fantasy, but frustration. After he and wife Renee moved their family from Oxford, Miss. (pop. 11,756), to Virginia’s rural Albemarle County, he discovered that he would have to drive his son Ty about 20 miles to play Little League.

“It was born out of anger about 10 years ago because there were no fields in this part of the county,” says Grisham, 49. “There were a lot of kids here who were not playing baseball, and there is not a lot of flat land, so there were not a lot of fields. Some of the leagues here, I thought, left a lot to be desired. I got mad and started building this place.”

He purchased 100 acres, dynamited the hilly terrain and opened Cove Creek Park in 1996. His son played baseball and his daughter, Shea, played softball there until they got too old for the youth leagues. Grisham has footed the entire bill for the multi-million dollar project. “Every year, there’s a nice deficit and I cover that and I’m happy to do it,” he says. “It’s never going to break even; I gave up that dream a long time ago.”

Commissioner Grisham kicked off the opening ceremonies of the 2004 season this month after several months of coaches’ meetings, player tryouts and drafts—all of which he conducts. “I stay pretty close to it,” he says. “I still sign every check and see every invoice.” He’s been known to line the fields himself, and has a friendly competition with Jennifer over who can create the straightest base lines. Neither poor sportsmanship nor profanity is tolerated in the ballpark. At the end of the season, every one of the 450 girls and boys will receive a trophy.

“I am lucky to be able to spend a lot of hours at the ballpark,” he says. “I really stopped working 13 years ago. I mean, I don’t consider writing to be heavy lifting, and I don’t write during baseball season. I write in late summer and throughout the fall and finish a book by Thanksgiving, so when the season starts, I don’t do much writing.”

Dreaming of Cardinals

While Grisham was growing up in small Southern towns such as Jonesboro, Ark. (pop. 55,515), and Crenshaw, Miss. (pop. 916), baseball was the center of his universe. “The whole world was at that ballpark,” says Grisham, the son of a construction worker and a homemaker. “We went there almost every night, either to play or to watch.

“The old men would line up behind the backstop in their lawn chairs and correct the umpires and yell at the players. The ladies would be off in the bleachers watching, shelling peas, knitting quilts and talking about all the social activities. It’s just where the whole town went.”

Like every other teammate on his Little League team, Grisham dreamed of being a St. Louis Cardinal. “Always in the background, there were two or three radios with (announcer) Harry Caray bringing us the Cardinals every night,” he recalls.

Although Grisham was forced to set aside his childhood dreams of becoming a professional baseball player, and instead found his phenomenal success in penning irresistible novels, baseball still has a firm hold on his heart. “First of all, it’s the oldest organized sport; it goes back generations,” he says. “The history of baseball is also the history of our country. There are records of Civil War soldiers playing baseball. Also, in areas like race relations and desegregation, baseball mirrors what happened in the country.”

After working long hours as a lawyer in Oxford, Miss., Grisham’s life was changed forever when his second novel, The Firm, became the best-selling novel in 1991 and a successful movie starring Tom Cruise. He followed that with The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker and other best-selling books. Grisham’s 17 books have sold more than 150 million copies in nearly 30 languages, while seven of his novels have been turned into films.

A Little League life

Although he quickly became a household name, Grisham didn’t allow the demands of fame to come before his family. In fact, he bypassed fancy awards dinners honoring him to coach his son’s Little League team.

“I kind of got away from baseball until my son came along,” he says. “When he was 7, he wanted to play baseball. I had no idea what was coming and how much fun it was going to be. I coached him every year until he was about 15.

“It’s a special time in a father’s life; it takes you back to your childhood,” he adds. “You get to relive a little bit of your childhood in such a positive way with your own kid.”

He still vividly recalls the last game of the season when Ty was 12. “We were living in Oxford and I left the field and thought, ‘Gosh, I can’t believe this is over.’ I think every serious Little League dad secretly dreams of just one more year because you just don’t want your kid to grow up.

“The age of 12 is a magical year for boys playing baseball. It’s the last year the kids are on the small field and they know the game and they are still little boys. After 12, they go to the big field, which is the same size field that the New York Yankees play on. So once they leave this field, they are in a whole different world of baseball.”

Spurred by emotion, Grisham started wondering, “How could I do one more year?” That brainstorming led to Mickey, a movie starring Harry Connick Jr. as a Little League father who conspires to have one more year of Little League by concealing his son’s age. Grisham wrote the screenplay and it was directed by fellow Albemarle County resident Hugh Wilson. The duo financed the movie themselves and will release it later this month.

“I don’t know what we were trying to do except make a real good baseball movie that both kids and adults would enjoy,” he says, noting that Mickey was filmed at Cove Creek Park and baseball fields in Petersburg and Richmond, Va., and Williamsport, Pa.

While he’s begun the outline for his next legal thriller, he’d like to write a baseball story for kids and a great baseball novel for adults. “I have been desperately waiting for the inspiration for a long time,” he says. “I’m playing around with an idea right now that might work or might not work. The literature of baseball is so rich and it goes back 150 years. So many of the stories have already been done.”

Despite his international acclaim, one of Grisham’s proudest accomplishments is Cove Creek Park. “I don’t think about a legacy,” he says. “I write popular fiction and by its very nature, it tends to be forgotten fairly soon. I have no illusions of being remembered after I stop writing. I hope this place will always be here.

“I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams, so it’s easy to give back. This place is a lot of fun.”

Beverly Keel is an American Profile editor.

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