MLB hits a home run with 'Field of Dreams' game
Members of the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees take the field prior to a game at the Field of Dreams on August 12, 2021 in Dyersville, Iowa. Credit: Getty Images/Stacy Revere
Count me on Team Boone regarding hardball cinema. Despite sitting on the cornfield-laced "Field of Dreams" set, with Kevin Costner watching batting practice, the Yankees’ manager didn’t flinch Thursday when a reporter pitched him a question about his No. 1 film from the genre.
"I would say it’s up there," Aaron Boone said before the Yankees lost, 9-8, when Tim Anderson’s two-run walk-off homer spoiled a big comeback in the ninth by the Yankees. "My favorite baseball movie is ‘Bull Durham.’ I don’t want to . . . you know . . . but I love that one."
Me, too. Baseball has never looked more fun -- even at the Triple-A level in North Carolina -- than its portrayal in that flick. But Boone needn’t worry about ruining Thursday’s vibe in Dyersville, Iowa.
This was more than a case of life imitating art, or art imitating life. I’m still not even sure how to characterize the event: a regular-season MLB game staged in a freshly-built 8,000-seat ballpark built adjacent to the miniature field (and farmhouse) used in the 1989 Oscar-nominated film.
When the idea was first hatched, back in 2015, I thought MLB was trying too hard. Modeling a game after a movie? It felt hokey. Hollywood is supposed to be using baseball for inspiration, not the other way around. And yanking a game away from the ticket-buying Chicago fans seemed wrong.
But then I saw the finished product -- sadly, from afar -- and couldn’t help but marvel at the accomplishment. The players reacted in much the same way. It isn’t often you hear them genuinely impressed by a change in venue, or talk affectionately about a bus ride, as they did rolling past people waving from their front lawns.
"It was pretty cool driving in and seeing everybody standing on the side of the road, with signs, cheering us on as we’re coming in," Judge said. "We all kind of felt like Messi coming into town."
OK, so maybe that wasn’t the ideal message for baseball’s big night. The New York Yankees, the most famous franchise in the sport, feeling like they momentarily ascended to the celebrity of a soccer star. But that’s beside the point. The focus instead should be on why Thursday really was special, and the importance of MLB’s efforts to keep chasing that Dyersville buzz.
While packing up the Yankees or Dodgers and shipping them to places like London or Sydney always came off as a reach, a blatant marketing ploy to "grow the game" -- i.e. add new revenue streams -- diverting their planes to Dyersville for an evening had a legitimate emotional hook.
It not only resonated among true baseball fans, but had the crossover appeal of a marquee event taking place during the dogs days of August. Other than in the theater, nobody had ever seen players emerge from a cornfield -- as the Yankees and White Sox did, intermingled, before Thursday’s first pitch -- to compete against each other, hundreds of miles away from the nearest MLB stadium.
And Costner kicking things off, wandering around the outfield grass, reprising his role as that Iowa farmer? Why the heck not? MLB already had spent more than $5 million to recreate this Field of Dreams, circa 2021, with faux-plywood walls, dugouts and scoreboards. Think of being at Disney World, taking a wrong turn at Space Mountain and winding up at Baseball Land.
But it all worked. And it’s going to keep working, as commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday the event will take place again next season, and likely more years beyond that, with teams to be named later (you can probably bet on some combination of the Red Sox, Mets, Cubs, Dodgers and Cardinals all showing up at some point in the future).
That was all good with Costner, who never could have imagined his Iowa film set would someday become a must-go destination for the planet’s elite players. But as Costner strolled the grounds, experiencing the sentimental voltage, he sensed it could be a renewable resource for the game.
"You never mess with a winning streak, do you?" said Costner, lifting his Crash Davis line from "Bull Durham," but using more family newspaper language. "But it does feel like all the teams are going to want to touch this. There’s going to be records set here . . . and you saw the players, it became a a point of pride to get one into the corn. There’s nothing like tradition, and today it starts."
Tradition can’t simply be manufactured, like carving a diamond out of cornstalks. But baseball travels with more than a century’s worth in tow, and no one does history better than the Yankees. And how fitting that it was Judge who wound up smacking a home run "into the corn" to deliver an early 3-1 lead, and then again in the ninth inning to spark a rally. Maybe not on the level of playing catch with the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, but special nonetheless.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
