Letters signed by 'Moonlight' Graham, known from 'Field of Dreams,' found at Maryland medical school

A Baltimore university alumni association director stumbled upon a stack of letters signed by baseball player and doctor Archibald “Moonlight” Graham, featured in "Field of Dreams," in the depths of the university's attic.

Larry Pitrof, executive director of The Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc. and baseball fanatic, always had a hunch he might find a trace of Graham, who attended the medical school in the early 1900s.

Following the first Major League Baseball game played between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox at the “Field of Dreams” movie site in Dyersville, Iowa, last summer, Pitrof searched the cabinets of the school's fourth-floor attic and discovered two years' worth of correspondence between Graham and the university's dean.

The story was first shared by The Baltimore Sun.

Graham's MLB career was short-lived. He was a New York Giant for a day in 1905 before he became an enduring civic giant in the Lilliputian village of Chisholm, Minnesota, where he was the beloved town doctor for decades after he swapped his bat and glove for a stethoscope and a black bag.

Graham was plucked from obscurity by author W.P. Kinsella, whose book "Shoeless Joe," became the inspiration for "Field of Dreams." The film is about an obsessed farmer, Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, who plows under a cornfield to built a baseball diamond after a disembodied voice whispers the request in his ear.

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The movie transcends sports by tapping the universal emotional resonance of a son's simple yearning to reunite with his late father — a motivation embraced by millions of people worldwide.

Pitof told the Des Moines Register he made the bold assumption that someone had gone through the files when they were given to the alumni association for preservation. He'd often thought about going through the documents himself but kept putting it off.

When he finally did, "it was like getting punched right in the face by something that had been begging for me to open for years," he said. "It was such a pleasant surprise."

The dozen Graham letters, unearthed by Pitrof, span 1903 to 1905, the years Graham attended medical school in Baltimore while pursuing his baseball career in the summers.

They include matriculation cards signed by Graham, $30 dollars he owed to the university, a request for a recommendation from the dean for an internship and questions about a training position at a Baltimore medical center.

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Before the discovery, as few as five or six known Graham signatures existed. Pitrof found four more in the letters.

Pitrof says discovery of the letters makes it clear of Graham's devotion to both medicine and baseball. They also spoke to Graham's impeccable character, he said.

"Here was a guy who had just finished medical school and was playing baseball at the time — neither career paid a lot of money and ... here he was repaying a $30 debt to the medical school dean," Pitrof said.

Graham retired from professional baseball in 1908, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. He settled in Chisholm, where he became the chief physician for the Chisholm public schools, a position he held until just before his death in 1965.

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Pitrof said Graham cared for the community through the 1918 influenza pandemic, encouraging residents to get vaccinated, and published a study that led to physicians monitoring blood pressures in children.

"I think if there's one takeaway from the life of doctor Graham that I would like to think wouldn't go unnoticed, it was this contribution to medicine," Pitrof said. "He served a community for 50 years and I don't think you work 70 miles south of the Canadian border in a town called Chisholm for the fame."

"I just hope that we refer to him as a role model," he said.

Pitrof told the Register the letters will likely stay in an archive at the school, though the alumni association will consider requests from institutions, such as Major League Baseball or the Smithsonian Institution, seeking to periodically display the collection.

Virginia Barreda is a trending and general assignment reporter for the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at vbarreda@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2. 

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Moonlight Graham autographs discovered at Baltimore medical school