LOUDONVILLE – A baseball movie double-feature showing “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams” will be shown on Sunday, June 11 at 1:30 p.m. at the Ohio Theater with partial proceeds benefiting youth baseball activities in Loudonville and Perrysville.
Hosted by The Mohican Rivermen, Ashland County’s only vintage base ball club, the benefit precedes the team’s first home game of the 2017 season on Saturday, June 17 at 2 p.m. when they welcome the Ohio Village Muffins to Loudonville.
Movie tickets will be $10 for adults and $5 for children under 15. A special raffle drawing will be held during the benefit with prizes including a replica Babe Ruth base ball bat donated by Phoenix Bats. Partial proceeds will benefit Loudonville Youth, Inc. and the Perrysville Youth Association.
Released in 1984, The Natural is a sports drama starring Robert Redford, Glenn Close and Robert Duvall. The film recounts the experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great “natural” baseball talent, spanning the decades of Roy’s success and his suffering.
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress (Glenn Close).
The second feature is Field of Dreams, a film released in 1989, starring Kevin Costner as Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella who hears a voice in his corn field telling him, “If you build it, he will come.”
He interprets this message as an instruction to build a baseball field on his farm, upon which appear the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series. Also featured are Amy Madigan, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster.
The Mohican Rivermen were formed earlier this year through a merger of the Loudonville Buzzards (founded in 2014) and the Perrysville Admirals (founded in 2015) in an effort to expand vintage base ball to all of Ashland County. The team has players from Loudonville, Perrysville, Ashland, Wooster and Shreve.
The club will play four home games this summer out of 12 play-dates against vintage teams from throughout Ohio, including the Wyandot Ghostriders (7/9), Akron Black Stockings (8/20), Whiskey Island Shamrocks and Canal Dover Red Legs (10/8), and the aforementioned Ohio Village Muffins (6/17).
All home games will be played on the soccer field behind the McMullen Elementary School in Loudonville.
The Rivermen will also appear at Butler’s Apple Fest for an exhibition game against its local Butler Bulldogs on October 15.
Sponsoring the Mohican Rivermen this season are Buzzard’s Family Shoes, Cowen Truck Line, Inc., and Stela’s Ice Cream Shoppe.
For more information, contact Brian Hartzell at 567-215-3236.
