Brady Tuckett, Theater & Film

In early 1992, it was announced that Salt Lake City’s minor league ballpark, Derks Field, was going to be tom down. Soon after reading these headlines, I became interested in making a documentary about the history of baseball in Salt Lake City. As a child, I attended many baseball games in Derks Field with my grandfather, to whom I have dedicated this documentary.

As I became involved in the project, I realized that there are many people (former players, fans, etc.) who have very strong feelings about the old Derks Field being demolished. It was at this point that the focus of my documentary shifted to the feelings and the memories of the people whom I interviewed.

Instead of having a narrator and a written dialogue, I have let the people who had been directly involved with Derks Field tell its story. They include John Mooney, retired sports editor for the Salt Lake Tribune; Glen Tuckett, retired athletic director of B YU and former Salt Lake Bees player; Dallas Green, manager of the New York Mets and former Salt Lake Bees player; Tom Dillon, assistant to Mayor DeeDee Corradini; and various fans of the Salt Lake Trappers.

This is not a film about baseball. This is a film about our social values and how drastically these values have changed over the past 40 or 50 years.

The project has had a great deal of success. It has won awards in both the Final Cut and the Underground Film Festival. It has been shown in several other local and national festivals, and has gained recognition as a project sponsored by Brigham Young University.

A copy of the film can be found in the Office of Research and Creative Work, BYU.