Published: June 15, 2009 06:48 am      

Turning back the clock

Documentary brings 1950s to Central Park

ASHLAND — From 1950s model cars to fans dressed in white T-shirts and blue jeans, Dave Carter got what he needed from the Ashland community on Sunday.

Carter, a former area resident, is producing the baseball documentary “Ashland’s Field of Dreams” to air on Aug. 28 at the Paramount Arts Center.

He’s done more than 50 interviews, including nearly two dozen on this trip, and is putting the finishing touches on the PBS-style production.

“There’s so much excitement about this,” he said while sitting at a picnic table in Central Park on Sunday. “It goes beyond people I know. It’s people talking about it to other people who do know me. The buzz is getting out there.”

Last week, Carter announced that Reds announcer Marty Brennaman had agreed to be a narrator for the film, which raised it up another level.

“People have come by the park all weekend,” Carter said. “They’ll say ‘You guys are the ones shooting the documentary.’’’

Carter, who has produced several PBS documentaries and is an Emmy winning producer, took on the project more than a year ago. “Ashland’s Field of Dreams” deals with the 1950s in Ashland when organized youth baseball was born. Several men from that era have been interviewed, along with others from the 1960s.

“It’s the seeds planted by the men who formed the Little League, Babe Ruth and Legion teams in Ashland,” he said. “Those spawned the (Billy and Bobby) Lynch boys, and others later, like Drew Hall, the No. 1 draft choice 25 years ago, and even all the way to Brandon Webb.”

Carter’s theme for the documentary centers on Ashland in the 1950s where Central Park was the place to be. He’s uncovered every stone in trying to make the documentary as authentic as possible by purchasing old equipment on eBay like cleats, baseball gloves and bats. He used stands-ins dressed in 1950s uniforms and clothes to help tell the story.

Carter played in the 1950s here so it’s not an unfamiliar story to him.

“I lived the story and you can’t underestimate that,” he said. “The attention to detail I’m putting in, I don’t have to research this.”

And with Carter, details matter.

For instance, he went to four different stores on Sunday morning trying to find a Whiffle ball with holes in it.

“They only had solid (plastic) balls, none with the holes,” he said. “But I’ll find one. One will be in the documentary.”

Carter enlisted some young actors to work some of the baseball parts in the documentary and even coached some fans who came to the park in blue jeans and white T-shirts for some crowd scenes.

The story reflects on the importance of Central Park to these baseball players, who became the pioneers of youth baseball in the area.

Carter remembers how baseball became a gateway for him, too. He played on the 1957 Babe Ruth All-Stars that advanced to the state tournament. He remembers rocking back and forth at shortstop and thinking “Hit it to me.”

“That became a defining moment in my life,” he said. “That’s what my career has been built on. I can handle whatever you throw at me in my field.”

Baseball provided that kind of confidence for countless others through youth sports, Carter said.

While the story is truly a slice of Americana, the documentary takes pains to make it Ashland’s story, he said.

“It’s about the boys and men who coached and played in Ashland,” Carter said. “The same story can be told a thousand times in America. But this is our story.”

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.