The man who brought one of baseball’s greatest stories to life has tragically passed away

Kevin Costner holding Gaby Hoffmann in a scene from the film 'Field Of Dreams', 1989. (Photo by Universal/Getty Images)

W.P Kinsella, author of many works, including the book “Shoeless Joe,” which was later adapted into the film “Field of Dreams,” has passed away this week at age 81.

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The prolific Canadian author reportedly ended his own life in an assisted death procedure, after a long fight with diabetes.

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Kinsella’s agent, Carolyn Swayze, released a statement after his passing describing him as a  “dedicated storyteller, performer, curmudgeon and irascible and difficult man,”

“He was a unique, creative and outrageously opinionated man.”

According to the Associated Press, Kinsella was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He fell in love with baseball thanks to his father John Kinsella, who played amateur baseball.

This relationship with his father would later inform some of the plot of “Shoeless Joe.”

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