Some see ghosts in the Field of Dreams. Drew Storen saw bourbon.

Drew Storen, left, and Tyler Clippard, right, are partners again, this time with the Field of Dreams Whiskey Company. (Washington Post photo by Michael Godek)

Drew Storen was never your typical Major League Baseball player. He always saw playing in the majors as a privilege, not a right, and believed it was important to show up and talk to the media, win or lose.

The son of Mark Patrick, a successful media personality in Indianapolis, he had seen plenty of examples of guys who got it and guys who didn’t.

“I always tried not to just give the media sound bites,” he said recently. “I tried to tell the truth. I think they always appreciated it.”

Storen’s honesty and his ability to connect with the media might have landed him a job in television when he retired. Some thought he might make front-office material after he stopped playing.

He went in a very different direction: bourbon.

Not to drink, although he enjoys a good glass. Instead, he has gone into the bourbon business. But he isn’t making just any bourbon. He’s making “Field of Dreams” bourbon and running his Carmel-based business, Field of Dreams Whiskey Co.

Storen and his partners—including former Washington Nationals teammate Tyler Clippard—bought the corn that is grown in the famous Iowa cornfield that served as the backdrop for the iconic 1989 movie.

The idea came to Storen after he, Clippard and Andy Keller, a boyhood friend from Indiana, visited a bourbon bar in San Francisco in 2018 while out there for a friend’s wedding. On the recommendation of the bar owner, Storen bought a book called “The Best Bourbon You’ll Never Taste.”

He had had Tommy John surgery in late 2017—”I got [Albert] Pujols and [Mike] Trout out with the bases loaded [in 2016], and then my arm blew up,” he remembered. He had been married for two years, and he and his wife, Brittani, had just had their first child, a son.

For most of his life, playing baseball had been Storen’s obsession. He was a star pitcher and state champion at Brownsburg High School outside Indianapolis and was drafted by the New York Yankees in the 34th round in 2007. He opted to go to Stanford, and the Nationals took him with the 10th pick in the 2009 draft.

That made him the Nats’ second pick of that draft—the first was Stephen Strasburg. Storen and Strasburg became friends that autumn while pitching in the Arizona Fall League.

“I remember watching him get ready for his first start,” Storen said. “I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about, why people were making such a big deal out of him. It took me a few pitches to understand. It was clear the guy was special. I remember thinking, ‘Wait a minute; I went nine picks after this guy?’ ”

By the time spring training rolled around in 2010, Strasburg was the talk of the Nationals’ camp, even though the one thing he really didn’t like to do was talk.

“We had dinner at a Cracker Barrel one night, and I remember him saying to me: ‘What’s the obsession the media has with me? I don’t get it,’ ” Storen said. “I said to him: ‘Stephen, right now, you’re the LeBron James of baseball. That’s why everyone wants to talk to you.’ ”

Storen actually made it to the majors a month before Strasburg and settled into a dual role with the Nats: closer and Strasburg’s unofficial spokesman. Strasburg rarely spoke to the media, so reporters crowded around Storen’s locker because he was happy to talk for and about his friend.

In 2011, his first full season, Storen had 43 saves. A year later, he had a bone chip removed from his elbow and missed the first half of the season. He came back to pitch well until the fateful night of Oct. 12, when he came in to save Game 5 of the divisional series against the St. Louis Cardinals, after already saving Game 1 and winning Game 4.

Even now, it is difficult for Storen to discuss that night—though he does so willingly. With a 7-5 lead, he got two outs and twice was one strike away from ending the series. He never got there, walking two and giving up two two-run singles. The Cardinals won the game, 9-7.

Storen answered every question he was asked that night and in the months after the game. On Jan. 15, he was working out back home in Indiana when he saw on the television crawl that the Nats had signed free agent closer Rafael Soriano.

“What bothered me about that most about it was the lack of communication,” he said. “Baseball’s a business. I get that, but a phone call telling me they were going to do it would have been nice. Instead, I found out on a TV crawl that I’d just lost my job.”

General Manager Mike Rizzo said the Soriano signing had nothing to do with Game 5 of the NLDS. “We all know the truth about that,” Storen said with a laugh.

Moved to a middle relief role, Storen struggled, even ending up back in the minors briefly. He came back to pitch well late in the season, and by 2015, Soriano was gone and Storen was closing again—quite effectively. The Nats were looking for a setup man before the trade deadline but instead traded for Jonathan Papelbon.

The trade was a disaster for everyone. With Papelbon pitching inconsistently and becoming a divisive presence in the clubhouse, the Nats faded from contention. Storen couldn’t adjust to being moved to a setup role again and pitched terribly before breaking his thumb on a locker after a poor outing, ending his season.

Papelbon’s stint with the Nats was headlined by his attempt to choke Bryce Harper during a dugout argument in a September game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

“Thank goodness Bryce was wearing a helmet,” Storen said. “Pap is built like a house. If he had shoved his head against the dugout wall without a helmet? I mean, who knows?”

The Papelbon trade ended Storen’s days as a closer. He was traded to Toronto before the 2016 season and pitched poorly there; he landed in Seattle and pitched well there before ending up in Cincinnati in 2017. He had one true highlight with the Reds: an immaculate inning in April against the Baltimore Orioles. He hurt his elbow in September, leading to the Tommy John surgery.

Nine months later, he came up with the “Field of Dreams” idea. When he called Clippard to suggest he invest, Clippard tried to convince him to make one more comeback.

“I was done by then. I knew I was done,” Storen said. “I had two young kids”—there are three now—”and I didn’t want to go back on the road and be away from them. Plus, my mind was completely wrapped up in the bourbon idea.”

It took him a while to call Andy Rahe, who leased the corn from Go the Distance Baseball LLC, “because I was afraid someone else already had the idea,” he said. When Rahe told him he simply took the corn into town and sold it there, Storen instantly offered to buy the corn from him.

In May, the first batch of Field of Dreams Bourbon went to market—22,860 bottles, the number of players who had played in the Major Leagues at the end of the 2022 season. (It’s available in Iowa and Indiana stores, with Nebraska to follow.) Several liquor stores in the Indianapolis area carry the whiskey, which retails for $79.99, and another product, Field of Dreams Southpaw Whiskey Lemon Ginger Canned Cocktail.

The results have been sensational. People have stood in line to buy the bourbon. What’s more, Storen got to play catch with both his father and his oldest son on that famous field.

“It’s all pretty great right now,” he said. “I’ve been able to combine the two passions of my life into doing something I love. It doesn’t get much better than that.”