In the film "Field of Dreams," the mystical baseball players emerging from the corn fields are in their prime.  They're fit and ready to play.  The magic that occurred in Iowa was real, at least in a cinematic sense.
 
On Saturday, Pepsi Max brought the "Field of Dreams" to Rochester and Frontier Field.  This one was different.  The players were real.  Mike Schmidt, Johnny Bench and Reggie Jackson were among the participants.  Six of the ten are Baseball Hall of Famers.  At least three of the remaining four will be. 
 
But Schmidt is 63, Bench 65, and Jackson was celebrating his 67th birthday here.  You don't beat Father Time and clearly on Saturday, he was among the big winners.
 
Give the players credit for trying.  There were some moments of interaction.  Bench was particularly engaging.  But there was nothing memorable in a baseball sense about the "Pepsi Max Field of Dreams at Frontier Field."  
 
In short, the magic was missing.
 
Which fails to explain why 13,716, the second largest crowd ever at Frontier field, a mere seven people short of the stadium record, turned out for the spectacle.  The line outside the stadium for the opening seating began to form at 8:00 am, some eight hours before the gates opened.  There were about twenty outside the stadium when Mark and Debbie Baron of Greece hunkered down at 11:30, and successfully navigated the politics of allowing their 23 year old son Jeff Baron to join them two hours later.
 
"It's the one big thing we have together," said Jeff.  "I'm not around so much.  But we always have baseball."
 
"It was really an important moment for me to share with him," said 58 year old Mark.  "That was the pinnacle, to have Jeff with me to see my legends.  These guys are history." 
 
The game was played at a quarter speed.  It was as painful to watch Schmidt running to first base as it must of been for him to try.  There were technical problems attempting to communicate with the players during the game.  The presentation fell a little flat and the laughter was canned.  Little of that mattered.
 
"It meant more than I planned," said Mark Baron of this particular baseball adventure.  "It was a really special moment."
 
And 13,716 seemed to agree.