The Real “Field of Dreams”

Hollywood knows exactly how to get in touch with our most deeply desired dreams. In the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams,” farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) follows an inner voice that leads him to build that famous “ball field in the middle of nowhere,” eventually allowing the past-his-prime lead character to fulfill his boyhood dream of playing baseball with the legendary “Shoeless Joe Jackson.”

Every man and boy who ever tossed a baseball felt the thrill along with Kinsella when the wraith-like Jackson strode out of the tall corn and on to that field.

Another famous baseball movie brought to the screen an equally stirring dream-come-true storyline. In “The Natural,” Robert Redford portrays aging Roy Hobbs, who gets to fulfill his derailed dream of playing major league baseball. Every testosterone-bearing viewer had a baseball-sized lump in his throat as Hobbs crushed a World Series–winning home run into the exploding outfield lights.

Want to spend two hours with Angelina Jolie? Hollywood can make that happen—sort of. Outside of the make-believe world of cinema, though, the opportunities to fulfill the dreams of your youth are few and far between. You and I are lucky, however. The fact that you are reading IRON MAN shows that you are already on the path to making your dreams a reality.

Of all the sports and other hobbies available to maturing men, nothing else offers the unparalleled possibilities of bodybuilding. Whether it’s the rush that comes from competition or the satisfaction of looking better than most of your friends, the iron game is where it can happen—at any age!

IRON MAN is filled with the transformation stories of men of all ages who made their dreams come true. I, for one, am a living example of that. When, at age 60, I decided to pursue my own transformation, I was able to go from a completely average, out-of-shape man in decline to someone who achieved a decades-old boyhood dream of appearing in a bodybuilding magazine.

As it turned out, the sport had even more in store for me than that unlikely scenario. I have since competed on stages across the nation against outstanding athletes of my own age—experiencing both the, “thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.” I have even appeared on the same magazine page as one of the heroes of my youth, the legendary Ed Corney. I could not have even conceived of that possibility back in the early ’70s, when Corney’s powerfully elegant physique virtually leaped from the pages of Pumping Iron (an influential book long before it was a groundbreaking movie).

And, in a final example of the age-defying possibilities of bodybuilding, I guest-posed, for the first time, at age 62, at a respected Florida show. That is one I never  would have dreamed of.

What about your dreams? Take it from someone who has been there:  If I can do it, so can you. I am genetically unremarkable, not prone to easy gains and held upright by a comparatively light frame. (Okay, I am unusually stubborn, however). But I’m here to tell you that if you dare to pursue the dreams of your youth, bodybuilding might just reward you even beyond those dreams.

—Tony DiCosta