09:42 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Journal photo / Bob Breidenbach Actor James Earl Jones reads Casey at the Bat to open the first day of festivities marking the Triple-A All-Star Week at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket.

PAWTUCKET -- Talk about going from the ridiculous to the sublime.

It doesn't get any worse than watching aging surfer boy Peter Pan try to hit a baseball in the tedious, and seemingly endless, Celebrity Home Run Hitting Challenge.

Unfortunately, the challenge for far too many of the celebrity contestants was simply to make contact. Getting the ball out of the infield was a triumph tantamount to the Red Sox winning the World Series.

Which, as the night dragged on, far behind schedule, seemed to have occurred more recently than when the marvelous, and mellifluous, James Earl Jones opened the Triple-A All-Star Game festitivities by proclaiming: "Welcome to Pawtucket's 'Field of DreaMcCoy Stadium."

This was supposed to be one of the finest hours in the history of a franchise that, over the last 27 years, has built a well-deserved reputation as one of the best, not just in baseball, but in all of professional sports.

But, as the celebrity home-run derby, which had been scheduled to start at 7:15, dragged on past 9:30, it was as if Joe Buzas, who drove the team into bankruptcy in the early '70s, had been brought back to organize the event.

The famous 33-inning game played by the PawSox in 1981 seemed to fly by in comparison to the hours-long, futile flailing of the over-large array of swinging (and mostly missing) celebrities from the sports and entertainment world.

Then, finally, Jones returned to the field, stepping to a microphone set up in front of the pitcher's mound to read "Casey At The Bat," in the process recording a save worthy of any ever recorded by the likes of Mariano Rivera or Keith Foulke.

No matter that, given the late hour, Jones' resonant reading was almost a bedtime story.

It turned a forgettable evening into a memorable one.

It already had been a very long day for the 73-year-old Jones, who had been at the park at 2 in the afternoon to read "Casey" to an enthralled group of young schoolchildren from the International Charter School.

"This is a beautiful ballpark," said Jones, his eyes sweeping the stands. "I enjoy reading to kids."

Turning his attention to the youngsters, Jones said: "This is a poem you've probably either read yourself, or had read to you. It's an important story because it reminds us that, if you're gonna win, somebody has to bite the dust."

Nearly eight hours later, somebody was lucky Jones didn't decide to play another of his famous roles, that of the voice of Darth Vader, wielding a light saber with far more effectiveness than most of the celebrities did their bats.

Instead, Jones remained in character, bringing to mind his portrayal of Terence Mann, the J.D. Salinger-like, best-selling-author-turned-recluse in Field of Dreams.

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball," Mann/Jones says to Ray Kinsella/Kevin Costner in what has become a baseball classic.

"America has rolled by, like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. Baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. People will come, Ray. People most definitely will come."

People definitely came last night, filling McCoy to see, not just the Celebrity Home-Run Challenge, nor even the Home Run Derby among legitimate sluggers from the International and Pacific Coast Leagues, but also a concert by the R.I. Philharmonic, followed by a fireworks show.

Not all stayed 'til the end, however.

There were numerous empty seats before the Philharmonic, which had been scheduled to play at 9:30, finally began tuning up more than an hour later.

Jones, who was a surprise guest -- his appearance hadn't been touted in the pre-game publicity -- made the wait worthwhile.

His voice -- the voice from Star Wars, the voice of Mustafa in the Lion King, the voice of CNN -- is a rich, distinctive baritone.

It brought to mind the lines Jones read from Casey: "It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell. It knocked up on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat."

The evening had been flatter than the Kansas prairie 'til Jones made his appearance.

We've all heard "Casey At The Bat." But never the way we heard it last night at McCoy Stadium, in Jones' rich, oh-so-deep, basso profundo.

As Jones, in the role of Mann, said in Field of Dreams, "They'll walk out to the bleachers and sit in shirt sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find . . . where they sat as children, and cheered their heroes. They'll watch the game, and it'll be as though they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll brush them away from their faces."

Jones reading "Casey" was unforgettable. Everything before that is better forgotten.