This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian's Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

When I packed my bag for this latest road trip, I headed out to our home’s garage and found the old rust-colored Rawlings glove with Cal Ripken Jr.’s signature burned into the palm. I grabbed a baseball from my kids’ bucket, stuck it in the webbing and then tossed the items in my car.

Bringing a baseball glove to work was out of character, but the Field of Dreams can do that to someone with sensitive heartstrings like myself. And it’s what you do at a place built around hopes and dreams and connections, and a feeling of wanting to walk into a moment from your past, if only for a moment to savor it more than you did at the time.

I thought back to what the character, Terence Mann, said to farmer Ray Kinsella in his famous speech in the “Field of Dreams” movie:

“People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.”

During a few summers as a kid, my family would load up the car and make the drive to Dyersville, Iowa. We loved the movie and popped the VHS in to watch it again and again. At the site of the movie, we walked in the corn, sat on the wooden bleachers and then just played baseball all afternoon with anyone else who happened to be there on those summer days. No score. No innings count. Just kids in a line and fathers taking turns pitching.

Like many dads, my own took the time to play catch and hit me grounders when I was growing up, even on those days he was tired after work or his aging arm just couldn’t fire the ball like it once could. That was something that I appreciated then, and more so as I got older. His father was the big Cubs fan in the family, born in 1909 and gone before the World Series drought ended.

It was my mom, Patti, who really sparked a love for baseball for me. She was a gifted athlete in her youth and a big White Sox fan. Minnie Miñoso was her favorite. Even as she got older and health issues crept in, she still loved to put on a glove and show off her arm. My mom always wanted her kids to know where their athleticism originated.

So, I packed my glove. I arrived in Dyersville like an innocent kid longing for the past. In my phone, I had a copy of a picture with an Aug. 5, 1992, timestamp on the front. I’m sitting with my mom on the steps in front of the Field of Dreams farmhouse, her arms around my waist as I lean into her, an arm around her shoulders.

I wish she could have been there to “have a catch” with me in the outfield. I lost my mom to cancer on Christmas Day in 1996. So instead, a few coworkers who also brought their gloves threw the ball around with me. One writer who played catch had recently lost his father. I’ll savor the sound of each pop of our gloves for a long time.