{"id":40309,"date":"2022-05-29T15:17:45","date_gmt":"2022-05-29T22:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=40309"},"modified":"2022-05-29T15:17:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-29T22:17:48","slug":"passing-of-ray-liotta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=40309","title":{"rendered":"Passing of Ray Liotta (updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">(Updated 5\/29\/22)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>Editor&#8217;s Note<\/strong>: <\/p><p><em>We&#8217;ve updated this post to add Kevin Costner&#8217;s comments, memories of Ray Liotta from the filming of Field of Dreams.<\/em>   (Scroll to bottom)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Sad news today, with the passing of Ray Liotta, at the age of 67.  For many, his role as Henry Hill in the movie &#8220;<em>Good Fellas<\/em>&#8221; was his most memorable.  To me, Liotta will always be Shoeless Joe, in <em>Field of Dreams<\/em>. The movie was released in 1989, the year following my father&#8217;s passing.   Twenty years later, I was among the fortunate to attend the Kevin Costner hosted 20th Anniversary Screening in Los Angeles.  Liotta, and the memory of Shoeless Joe lives on in celluloid, answering Liotta&#8217;s question in the film, &#8220;<em>Can I come back again<\/em>?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Actor Ray Liotta, who has died at the age of 67, starred in many movies over the decades.<br><br>But for us, he\u2019ll always be Shoeless Joe from \u201cField of Dreams.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JWBl79G7Ir\">pic.twitter.com\/JWBl79G7Ir<\/a><\/p>&mdash; ESPN (@espn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/espn\/status\/1529885298238402561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 26, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Field of Dreams with Ray Liotta\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Vk-gg0dVVDA?start=26&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Film icon&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/topic\/kevin-costner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kevin Costner<\/a>&nbsp;paid tribute to \u201cField Of Dreams\u201d costar&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/topic\/ray-liotta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ray Liotta<\/a>, who&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/ray-liotta-dies-dgoodfellas-actor-ray-liotta-deadead_n_628fa6fee4b0edd2d020d6a5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">died on Thursday<\/a>&nbsp;at the age of 67.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it turns out, one memorable moment in the beloved baseball film wasn\u2019t planned. It just happened, and Costner\u2019s reaction was genuine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Devastated to hear the news of Ray Liotta\u2019s passing. While he leaves an incredible legacy, he\u2019ll always be \u201cShoeless Joe Jackson\u201d in my heart. What happened that moment in the film was real. God gave us that stunt. Now God has Ray. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JQmk1PsuSK\">pic.twitter.com\/JQmk1PsuSK<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Kevin Costner &amp; MW (@modernwest) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/modernwest\/status\/1529924892564635654?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 26, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the film\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0097351\/trivia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">trivia page on IMDb<\/a>, Liotta had no experience playing baseball and trained for the role with legendary USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux, developing the swing that led to that surprising on-camera moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Liotta did have one regret about his performance: Jackson hit lefty while Liotta himself was a righty. Although he tried to learn to hit left-handed, it just didn\u2019t work out and he had to move back to his natural side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo this day I regret it because I\u2019m a bug, making sure things are accurate,\u201d Liotta said in the DVD extras,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2004\/05\/23\/catch-it-again-liotta-wasnt-clueless-he-just-couldnt-hit-like-shoeless-joe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">per the New York Post<\/a>. \u201cThere used to be Monday Night Baseball and they were talking about the movie and how wonderful the movie was and some announcer who shall remain nameless said, \u2018Yeah, but Shoeless Joe was batting the wrong way.\u2019 Well, he didn\u2019t come down from heaven either, so&#8230; \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Liotta died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic, where he was filming a movie called \u201cDangerous Waters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Updated 5\/29\/22) Editor&#8217;s Note: We&#8217;ve updated this post to add Kevin Costner&#8217;s comments, memories of Ray Liotta from the filming of Field of Dreams. (Scroll to bottom) Sad news today, with the passing of Ray Liotta, at the age of 67. For many, his role as Henry Hill in the movie &#8220;Good Fellas&#8221; was his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1036,28,60],"tags":[1334,1333,1335],"class_list":{"0":"post-40309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-baseball","7":"category-featured","8":"category-inmemoriam","9":"tag-fieldofdreams","10":"tag-rayliotta","11":"tag-shoelessjoe","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40309"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40341,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40309\/revisions\/40341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}