If you’ve seen the movie Field of Dreams, or read the book Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, then you’ll probably recognize the name Moonlight Graham. Portrayed in the movie by the late Burt Lancaster, Archibald Wright Graham was an actual player who was characterized as having only played one major league game and never batted.  In the movie, Graham gave up his baseball dream in order to become a doctor.  But according to researcher David W. Smith, founder of Retrosheet, Graham’s career was incorrectly summarized on the screen.

After having recently obtained the play by play details of Moonlight’s only game from the New York Evening Telegram, Smith broke down some of the differences between the Hollywood version and the reality of Graham’s career:

1. The game was not at the end of the season, it was June 29.
2. It was 1905, not 1922.
3. Graham played two innings in right field, not one.
4. The Dodgers did hit at least one ball out of the infield while Graham
   was playing, perhaps two.

According to Smith, one item in his Graham research that he found particular poignant was that Graham was on deck when Elliott flied out to end the top of the 9th.

Adding to Smith's research, Bob Timmermann using the New York Times online database from 1905 found one pertinent reference to Moonlight Graham that year. It was a spring training article from March 29, 1905 and it mentioned that a "Dr. Archie Graham" was the last player to join the Giants squad. He was described as a "utility outfielder".  According to Timmermann, another March article in the New York Times referenced Graham and how he had just earned his medical degree. The New York Times referred to him only as Dr. Graham.

According to research done by Dick Thompson and Tom Simon, Graham never got a license to practice medicine until 1909, the year after he quit playing baseball.

Although some newspaper accounts said that Graham got the nickname "Moonlight" because of his speed, it has been suggested by Mike Rappaport that when Graham was in the minors, he was also "moonlighting" as medical student and the nickname stuck.