Ray Kinsella, the narrator of the story, is raised in Montana. His father passes on to him a love of baseball. Ray marries Annie, the daughter of his landlady. Ray takes a job as a life insurance salesman, even though he dislikes the nature of the job. On his wife’s suggestion, he rents and later buys a farm even though he has little expertise in farming and operating machinery. Even though Ray takes great pride in the farm, he falls into debt because of the hard times prevailing for the farmers. Impractical, imaginative and emotional, his wife's family dislikes him, and he has no liking for them. Ray also dislikes traditional religion, big business, and authority figures.

Ray is gifted with imagination and the ability to conceive a dream and work on it until it assumes concrete shape. When he hears the mysterious voice saying, "If you build it, he will come," (1) he immediately understands what it means and sets about building the baseball field. Based on his visions, he decides to rekindle the enthusiasm for baseball of his favorite writer, J. D. Salinger, and to heal Salinger's pain. Ray’s