The author noticed Graham’s name while thumbing through the Baseball Encyclopedia he had received as a Christmas gift from his father-in-law. Kinsella brought back to life Moonlight Graham, who played one major league baseball game but never got to bat. “His most famous book was the classic ‘Shoeless Joe,' which inspired one of my favorite movies, ‘Field of Dreams.’” “His work has touched the lives of thousands of baseball fans across Canada and around the world,” Crawford said in a statement. Scott Crawford, director of operations at the Canadian hall, said he was saddened to learn of the author’s death. It looks like it will stand the test of time,” Mr. “I wrote it 30 years ago, and the fact that people are still discovering it makes me proud. In 2011 the Canadian baseball Hall of Fame awarded him the Jack Graney Award for a significant contribution to the game of baseball in Canada. Kinsella, a bona fide baseball junkie, loved the movie and said he had tears in his eyes when he first saw it. Kinsella’s book - “If you build it, they will come” and “Go the distance” - have taken their place in literature’s lexicon and among Hollywood’s most memorable movie lines.

It became the blueprint for the 1989 Oscar-nominated movie, which starred Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta. When he does, Shoeless Joe Jackson and other baseball players of yesteryear come to play. In the 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe,” a farmer hears a voice telling him to build a baseball diamond in his corn fields. Assisted deaths became legal in Canada in June.

Details about his health were not disclosed. Kinsella’s death on Friday in Hope, British Columbia was doctor-assisted. His literary agent Carolyn Swayze said in a statement that Mr.

Kinsella, who blended magical realism and baseball in the book that became the smash hit film “Field of Dreams,” has died. VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Canadian novelist W.P. (AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy,File) RUSTY KENNEDY/Associated Press The agency did not provide details about Kinsella's health. 16, 2016, in Hope, British Columbia, Canada. His literary agency confirms the writer had a doctor-assisted death on Friday, Sept. Kinsella, the author of 'Shoeless Joe,' the award-winning novel that became the film 'Field of Dreams,' has died at 81. Kinsella standing on the baseball field before game five of the World Series between Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves in Toronto, Ontario. 23, 1992, file photo shows Canadian author W.P.

Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella