Shoeless Joe is a book about a man who builds a baseball field in his cornfield because he heard a voice telling him "if you build it, he will come". So this man Ray Kinsella builds this field and spends a tremendous amount of time and money building it. He builds the field section by section, and as each section of the field is completed, a baseball player who has been dead for some time comes and plays in that position. The first area of the field that is completed is left field, where Ray's favorite baseball player, Shoeless Joe Jackson plays. .
As Ray is building the baseball field, he hears another voice, "Ease his pain." Ray than had a vision of J. D. Salinger and himself sitting at Fenway Park watching a baseball game. So at that point Ray knew that it was Salinger that he needed to find. Ray set off to find Salinger. Once he found him, he got him to come with him to Fenway Park. While watching the game another voice was heard saying, "Go the distance." This time Salinger heard the voice too, also up on the scoreboard the stats of Moonlight Graham were shown and only Salinger and Ray could see them. The two men then set off to Chisholm, Minnesota, where Moonlight Graham died. In Chisholm they found information on Graham, like how he was a doctor. As they were leaving Chisholm they picked up a hitchhiker named Archie Graham (Moonlight Graham). Before they went back to Iowa where Ray lived they stopped at a ballpark in the middle of the night and broke into it. After they messed around in the ballpark they picked up Eddie Scissons, Ray's friend and the person Ray bought the farm from. Then they all went to Ray's field to watch the games that took place there. When they got to Ray's farm Richard, Ray's twin brother, was there, whom he hadn't seen for 15 years. .
Ray than showed everyone the field and explained what goes on there. While they were watching a game Shoeless Joe came up to Moonlight Graham and asked him if he wanted to play, of course he accepted.