Summer just isn't summer without an awful Adam Sandler blockbuster and this year he delivers an update to the Gary Cooper classic, "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." But that isn't the only classic being updated to reflect the current times.

FIELD OF DREAMS, 2002

[SCENE 182: AUTHOR TERENCE MANN, WHO HAS BEEN WATCHING A TEAM OF TED WILLIAMS CLONES PLAYING ON THE DIAMOND, SUDDENLY HAS AN IDEA. HE WALKS OVER TO RAY KINSELLA WITH A SOLUTION TO THE MORTGAGE PROBLEM.]

TERENCE: People will come, Ray.

They'll come to Iowa, not to mention St. Louis and Chicago and San Francisco (but not Tampa Bay or Montreal), for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure whether the game will end in time for them to get home before midnight or whether it will end in a 7-7 tie. They'll arrive at your door, as innocent as children and naïve as sportswriters, longing for the past and paying for the present. 'Of course, we won't mind if you look around,' you'll say, 'it's only $20 per person. For parking. Then it's $2,000 for a personal seat license. Plus $45 for a box seat, not including Ticketmaster's 'convenience fee.' And $25 for the team cap. And $120 for the replica alternate jersey. And $7 for the beer. And $8 for the garlic fries. And if you don't build us a new $500 million stadium with a retractable dome, the commissioner will contract us.' But they'll pass over the money without even thinking about it, for it is money they have, and common sense and decent public schools they lack.

They'll stand in line for five hours for a cheap bobblehead that shows the goatee but not the acne scars of their favorite player. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. They'll be too busy talking on the cell phone to their fantasy league commissioner to watch the game, but when the Ted Williams clone steps to the plate, they will dip their neighboring fans in stale beer fighting for a better location. The collectors will be so thick in the bleachers that they'll have to hire extra security and bring in FBI agents to mark the baseballs with infra-red dots for identification as soon as they're removed from the stadium humidor.

People will come, Ray.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been home run highlight videos. Pitchers have been flattened as if by an army of steamrollers. Batters have been juiced, injected and juiced again. This field, this game, is a part of your past, Ray. And you're living in it if you think fans want to see a 3-2 pitchers duel any more. The game has been taken over by 250-pound hitters who should be swinging chairs in a WWF ring, not bats on a diamond. Their performances would remind us of what was good and could be again but not when we can't even think straight because our kids are constantly shouting about how they want the 2002 update of Nintendo's Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball so they can sit inside and practice hitting home runs on the computer while they get so fat they have to buy two seats on Southwest Airlines.

Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Unless, of course, the players strike.

Box score line of the week
Frank Castillo allowed 11 hits and 10 runs . . . in relief. Eric Gagne allowed four runs in one-third of an inning, hit a batter, was ejected and performed George Brett's old go berserk routine from the pine tar game.

Two fine efforts, undoubtedly, but this week's award goes to designated hitter Edgar Martinez who went to the plate five times Saturday and drove in three runs yet only had one at-bat for this very rare line:

1 AB, 0 R, 0 H, 3 RBIs

Martinez walked once and hit three sacrifice flies, tying the record.

If you're not impressed by a sacrifice fly record, you're not alone. Manager Lou Piniella said he didn't think it was that hard to get three in a game while Martinez told reporters, "I didn't know there was a record for sacrifice flies."

Lies, damn lies and statistics
During Cliff Floyd's three weeks with the suddenly contending Expos, Montreal drew 170,974 fans, an average of 14,247 per game, substantially higher than their average of 8,645 for non-Floyd games. So is Montreal the problem or is the quality of the team (and the owner) more of a factor in the low attendance? ... Boston fans better shut up about the Yankees buying pennants. The Red Sox not only got Floyd in a deal that raised more suspicions about the league's impartiality -- remember, the league greased the skids for the new Sox owners when they bought the team last winter -- they swallowed more than $4 million in salary when they dumped Jose Offerman to make room on the roster. That's the sort of move available only to a fabulously rich team -- like Yankees or the Red Sox. ... Last weekend's Cleveland-Seattle series was the first meeting between the two teams since last October's Division Series and exemplified just how far Cleveland has fallen his year. Cleveland came within one victory of beating Seattle in the playoffs but by the time it played the Mariners again, Cleveland had traded second baseman Robbie Alomar, ace pitcher Bartolo Colon, starter Chuck Finley, relievers Ricardo Rincon and Paul Shuey, let outfielders Kenny Lofton and Juan Gonzalez leave as free agents and fired manager Charlie Manuel. No wonder shortstop Omar Vizqual says he just refers to all his new teammates as "Buddy" or "Hey, major leaguer." ... The Twins opened their lead to 17 games in the AL Central -- bigger than the Yankees', Mariners', Diamondbacks' and Cardinals' leads combined -- but commissioner Bud Selig maintains their success is an aberration. Well, their success probably will prove difficult to maintain in coming years, but it is no aberration. We've seen it before and we'll see it again. Oakland won 100 games and reached the playoffs despite one of the lowest payrolls in the game last year and won the AL West despite one of the lowest payrolls in the game two years ago.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.