Field of Dreams Game gets canceled

UPDATE: The game between the Chicago White Sox and the St. Louis Cards in Dyersville, Iowa, has been canceled, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Des Moines Register reported that MLB decided to err on the side of caution during the pandemic, and planned to reschedule a game in 2021.

Original story: 

If they build it, will anybody be able to come? Well, they built it, but as of this writing Major League Baseball had yet to decide on whether any fans will be able to attend what is being dubbed MLB at Field of Dreams presented by GEICO.

Simply put, it’s the Field of Dreams Game.

MLB, as its been doing the past few years to expand the boundaries of its game, has created a new site at which to play, this one in a cornfield next to the original field featured in the Kevin Costner movie “Field of Dreams.”

The game between the Chicago White Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals is set for Thursday, Aug. 13, at 7 p.m. Eastern. FOX will provide the coverage.

The ballpark on the Dyersville, Iowa, site holds 8,000 fans and has a pathway through a cornfield that will take fans (if there are any fans) to the original ballpark, now the Field of Dreams Movie Site.

The right-field wall includes windows to show the cornfields beyond the ballpark. Otherwise the stadium was built to pay homage to Chicago’s Comiskey Park, the home of the White Sox from 1910-1990.

The White Sox were chosen for obvious reasons; in the movie, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and others from the infamous 1919 Black Sox Scandal emerge from the corn field to play on the field.

Because of the coronavirus, the Cards replaced the New York Yankees for the event due to the shortened season and teams only playing in their geographic region to limit travel.

It will be the first Major League Baseball game to be played in Iowa. And, as MLB stated, it “follows other recent special events that have taken groundbreaking Major League games to non-traditional domestic locales, including the Fort Bragg Game in 2016, MLB In Omaha at the NCAA’s Men’s College World Series in 2019, and the annual Little League Classic, in Williamsport since 2017. The events at Fort Bragg and in Omaha were the first Major League games ever in North Carolina and Nebraska, respectively.”

“As a sport that is proud of its history linking generations, Major League Baseball is excited to bring a regular-season game to the site of ‘Field of Dreams,’” MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred Jr. said in a statement. “We look forward to celebrating the movie’s enduring message of how baseball brings people together at this special cornfield in Iowa.”

The iconic 1989 movie stars Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones and Amy Madigan, and tells the story of Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, who is tending to his cornfield when he hears a mysterious voice say, “If you build it, he will come.” It’s the 39th top film quote of all time, according to the American Film Institute.

Hopefully the game goes on as planned without any hiccups, and that at least a few fans will be able to attend.  

Dave Strege is Editor of SCD. Contact him at dstrege@aimmedia.com.