Is Iowa 'Heaven'? Ron DeSantis charms crowd with 'Field of Dreams' yarn

Aug 20, 2023

Ron DeSantis is telling Iowa audiences that one of his children wonders if Iowa is “Heaven.”

During a Never Back Down town hall on Saturday in Cedar Rapids, the Florida Governor and 2024 presidential candidate told a story about tossing a baseball with his son, who posed the theological question about the Hawkeye State.

“The first time we brought him to Iowa, I showed him the Movie Field of Dreams because that was a big deal for me as a kid playing baseball and everything,” DeSantis related.

“So yesterday we were at the Clayton County Fair and before we got back on the bus, we just went over in the field right next to all the corn and my son brought his baseball stuff and he’s throwing balls to me. And he said, ‘Daddy, is this Heaven?'”

The Governor told Mason that it was, in fact, Iowa.

“But hey, it’s close, right?”

During an interview back in July with Hugh Hewitt, the Republican presidential candidate said his frequent trips to Iowa inspired screening the movie for his children in the first place.

“Because you know, we’re in Iowa, campaigning in Iowa, I introduced my kids — 6, 5 and 3 — to the Field of Dreams baseball field and the cornfield. And so now, they’re watching Field of Dreams. Now, they’re watching other baseball movies, and so we’ve been showing them different things,” DeSantis said.

While the Kevin Costner film is considered a classic (it was a Best Picture nominee in 1989), not every film in the DeSantises’ watch history is so critically acclaimed. His son’s favorite du jour is the 1993 sports comedy “Rookie of the Year.” For the uninitiated, that’s the one “where the 12-year-old has the rocket arm and pitches for the Cubs.”

“We’ve been kind of doing the on-demand baseball movies right now,” said DeSantis, who played in the Little League World Series as a child and was considered a star on the Yale baseball team during college.