First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"My father's name was John Kinsella. It's an Irish name. He was born in North Dakota in 1896 and never saw a big city until he came back from France in 1918. He settled in Chicago where he quickly learned to live and die with the White Sox. Died a little when they lost the 1919 World Series, died a lot the following summer when 8 members of the team were accused of throwing that series. He played in the minors for a year or two but nothing ever came of it. Moved to Brooklyn in '35, married mom in '38 and was already an old man working at the naval yards when I was born in 1952. My name's Ray Kinsella. Mom died when I was three and I suppose dad did the best he could. Instead of Mother Goose, I was put to bed at night with stories of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. Dad was a Yankees fan then so, of course, I rooted for Brooklyn. But in '58 the Dodgers moved away and we had to find other things to fight about. We did. And when it came time to go to college, I picked the farthest one away from home I could find. [Ray is seen on the University of California, Berkeley campus] This of course drove him right up the wall which, I suppose, was the point. Officially my major was English but, really, it was the '60s. I marched, I smoked some grass, I tried to like sitar music, and I met Annie. The only thing we had in common was that she came from Iowa and I had once heard of Iowa. After graduation we moved to the mid-west and stayed with her family as long as we could; almost a full afternoon. Annie and I got married in June of '74. Dad died that fall. A few years later, Karen was born. She smelled weird but, we loved her anyway. Then Annie got the crazy idea that she could talk me into buying a farm. I'm 36 years old, I love my family, I love baseball and I'm about to become a farmer. But until I heard the voice, I'd never done a crazy thing in my whole life."
"[To Moonlight Graham as he leaves the field] Hey, rookie! You were good."
"If you build it, he will come."
"Ease his pain."
"Go the distance."
"All his life, Ray Kinsella was searching for his dreams. Then one day, his dreams came looking for him."
"If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true."
"Kevin Costner - Ray Kinsella"
"Amy Madigan - Annie Kinsella"
"Gaby Hoffmann - Karin Kinsella"
"Ray Liotta - Shoeless Joe Jackson"
"James Earl Jones - Terence Mann (This character was derived from that of J. D. Salinger as portrayed in the story Shoeless Joe.)"
"Burt Lancaster - Dr. Archibald 'Moonlight' Graham"
"Timothy Busfield - Mark"
"The Voice - Himself (per end credits)"
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.