Major League Baseball ‘s growth goals have taken the game from a military base in North Carolina to a racetrack in Tennessee, with numerous stops for photo ops around the globe in between.
But there’s nothing quite like turning the bright lights on an Iowa cornfield, where home runs disappear into a sea of green stalks and ghosts of old ballplayers just might still be whispering. After playing in 2021 and 2022 at a temporary facility next to the “Field of Dreams” movie site, MLB has returned to stage another regular-season game in what is now a permanent ballpark.
The Minnesota Twins host the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday in the small town of Dyersville, where mystique and nostalgia will hop into the pennant races for a night and the pace of the big-city beat can quickly fade into the endless rolling hills.
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“It’s going to be really cool, having been able to see the movie when I was growing up,” Phillies All-Star Kyle Schwarber said. “I’ve never been out there before, so I’m excited to see the corn.”
Schwarber and his teammates sure won’t be disappointed.
“It looks awesome this year,” said Keith Rahe, the executive director of Dyersville Events, which owns and operates the complex that now stretches beyond the farmhouse and ballfield that set the 1989 film and hosts a full calendar of youth tournaments as well as high school, college, minor league and senior-level competitions.
Rahe’s nephews grew up there and have carefully cared for the corn for more than a decade. Their five-person crew has worked particularly hard on those 67 acres this summer, fertilizing, transplanting and watering so their state’s signature crop looks as lush as can be for Netflix’s worldwide streaming audience.
“It’s a big garden,” Rahe said. “It takes a lot of time and energy.”
They built it, and MLB came back
After the 2020 game originally scheduled between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox was pre-empted by the pandemic, the White Sox played the New York Yankees in 2021 with a Fox telecast that was the most-watched regular-season game in 23 years. The Chicago Cubs then faced the Cincinnati Reds in 2022.
Rave reviews of the broadcast presentation and on-site experience weren’t enough to guarantee the Field of Dreams an annual place on the MLB schedule, however, like the Little League World Series site in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Building a temporary ballpark from scratch was an unsustainable task.
So the people in Dyersville – 2020 census population: 4,477 – and the business community in northeast Iowa went to work on planning and funding a permanent venue that could continue to attract visitors to the area. With a state tourism grant from federal pandemic relief money and a few big contributions from local donors, construction began two years ago on a 3,000-seat ballpark that finished in time for a series of showcase events this summer.
“We have some real plumbing that we don’t need to bring in, which is a real positive,” said MLB senior vice president of global operations and events Jeremiah Yolkut.
With temporary bleachers added for the major league crowd, there will be seating for about 8,000 people on Thursday. Fans will again enter the complex through the quaint ballfield where the movie was filmed and walk through the corn toward the new ballpark. There will be more amenities than before, but still a vibe of simplicity. More than 25 members of the Hall of Fame are scheduled to be present.
“I think it’s the perfect blend of being in the movie, on a farm, watching the baseball game, but having some of the creature comforts that people seek out when they’re coming to big events, and that’s a unique thing for us to be able to do,” Yolkut said. “I’m sure down the road if we’re able to come back to Field of Dreams we’ll learn things this year about having a permanent structure around the ballfield, but everything else remains the same.”
Connecting through a game of catch
Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella welcomed the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and friends to his farmland ballfield in the fantasy film that received a best picture nomination, with a powerful closing scene during which he reconnects with his baseball-playing late father: “Hey, dad, you want to have a catch?”
Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. – both former Reds – tossed the ball back and forth in the outfield in a memorable 2022 pregame ceremony. With that in mind, Twins manager Derek Shelton has invited his father to come to Iowa for the game.
“The story is such an interesting story, not only about baseball but about fathers and sons,” Shelton said. “So I think everybody that’s going to have their dad there, it’s going to be a really cool moment to be able to share that with them.”
There’s a weather contingency plan just in case
Last year, heavy rain at Bristol Speedway forced the Braves-Reds game in Tennessee to be suspended and completed the following night. With rain in the forecast for northeast Iowa on Thursday, there’s always the chance the game would have to be postponed.
In that scenario, both teams would remain in the area overnight and play on Friday night with the previous day’s tickets used for fan admission, but MLB said it will “do everything possible to play the game as scheduled.” The Twins and Phillies are supposed to be off on Friday for travel to Minneapolis before finishing their series at Target Field on Saturday and Sunday.
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