Author: Michelle McCue

“The one constant through all the years has been baseball.”

On Thursday evening in Iowa, MLB proved that the game of baseball is truly America’s great past time.

More than three decades after “Field of Dreams” seeped into the country’s cultural consciousness, with a one-year delay caused by the pandemic, one of the most famous cornfields in Hollywood history finally gets the opportunity to host real major league ball.

“Is this heaven?” the ghost of John Kinsella asked in the movie that inspired the game to be played Thursday between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees next to the actual site used in the 1989 film, which is maintained as a tourist attraction.

“No, it’s Iowa,” dutiful farmer Ray Kinsella — played by Kevin Costner — responded to his father with a smile before they played catch under the lights in the movie’s most poignant scene.

Source: AP

Fittingly, Costner was here, there and everywhere during the Iowa festivities, including on the field for a pregame ceremony that was everything a fan of this particular movie could have hoped for.

With dramatic music playing over the loudspeaker, Costner, holding a baseball, emerged from the cornfield beyond the outfield. He looked around, soaking in the scene, and then turned back to the outfield, where White Sox and Yankees players, dressed in throwback uniforms and looking so much like the characters in the movie, walked out from the corn fields. Just like the movie.

“Thirty years ago, on the other side of that corn, we filmed a move that stood the test of time,” Costner said to the crowd. “Tonight, thanks to the enduring impact that little movie had, it’s allowed us to come here, again, on a field that Major League Baseball made. We come to see a first place White Sox play the mighty Yankees, in a field that was once corn. It’s perfect.”

Source AP https://www.mlb.com/news/best-moments-from-field-of-dreams-game

Players didn’t compete on the actual field used in the movie but rather one just a corn maze away. 

MLB broke ground in Iowa in 2019 for a game that was originally set for the Chicago White Sox and the Saint Louis Cardinals. The diamond was designed to resemble that of Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

Thursday night, 8,000  fans were in attendance at the makeshift stadium. MLB conducted a public lottery for the opportunity to purchase tickets for those with Iowa zip codes.

This won’t be a one-time visit, either. Commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed that the Field of Dreams game will return in August 2022, with the teams to be determined.

In the end, the White Sox outslugged the Yankees 9-8 in the first Major League Baseball game in Iowa.

“We love numbers in baseball, and here is one to remember: 30,000 — as in, construction crews moved 30,000 cubic yards of material in order to clear the acreage and level the terrain necessary to build the MLB field. You’ll see why on Thursday night, if you notice the upward slope of the cornfields beyond the left-field (corn) wall. The terrain’s natural grade had to be smoothed in order to build an MLB-caliber playing surface.

As your eyes trace the outfield perimeter, you’ll notice a few more unique features. The batter’s eye is a perfect hitting backdrop, in the shape of a country barn with a dark brown hue. The bullpens are situated beyond the wall in straightaway center field, a nod to their location in the original Comiskey Park. And there’s a hand-operated scoreboard in right field, completing the aesthetic that would have been familiar to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the film’s fellow “ghost players.”

For more read here: https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/field-of-dreams-keeps-reality-on-deck

A Field of Dreams Game just wouldn’t be the same without “Field of Dreams” actors, and this event featured two. Fittingly, given how much the father-son theme of the film still resonates today, Ray Kinsella (Costner) and his pops, John (Dwier Brown) were part of the Iowa festivities.

“Hey Dad? You wanna have a catch?” Brown tweeted, while standing on the field.

Field of Dreams is about the Chicago “Black Sox” scandal that plagued baseball and that fascinates Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) as he undertakes an extraordinary gamble before setting off on a journey that connects him with three unlikely allies: reclusive author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), baseball player Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster) and “Shoeless Joe” Jackson himself (Ray Liotta). With the support of his wife (Amy Madigan), Ray discovers the importance of long-sought forgiveness in director Phil Alden Robinson’s film, which has become synonymous with baseball.