Major League Baseball will pay homage to one of the greatest sports movies ever Thursday evening in the Field of Dreams Game between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox just outside of Dyersville, Iowa.
More than 30 years since the Kevin Costner film became part of the American lexicon, baseball fans are going to witness a romanticism that has defined baseball’s relationship with this country.
Postponed from last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the site of the Field of Dreams Game has been two full years in the making.
What you need to know: Field of Dreams Game
- Date: Thursday, Aug. 12 at 8 PM EST
- Television: Fox
- Location: Dyersville, Iowa
- Teams: New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox
As for the location itself, MLB is attempting to bring us back to a simpler time in baseball’s history, one that was defined by some of the sport’s all-time greats. It was also defined by the now-infamous 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal in which multiple players were banned for life after throwing the World Series that year.
The scene is just eye-opening.
More than a century later, the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and many others will be on hand in spirit to see this game played at the Iowa cornfields that were made famous by the blockbuster movie.
Field of Dreams Game: The history
“They’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”
Those were the words spoken by James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann to Ray Kinsella in one of the most famous quotes in American film history. The scene still gives baseball fans a tingle down their spines. They also speak to what this game means for those around the sports world and their relationship with baseball.
The movie follows a story of an Iowa farmer who attempted to reconnect with his late father by building a baseball field for deceased greats of the past to play, most of whom were banned from baseball as members of the 1919 White Sox team.
Kinsella (Costner) heard voices. “If you build it, they will come.” Only the believers would see the ghosts on the field. Others called out Kinsella for being crazy at a time when he was threatened to be foreclosed on.
The movie is as American as baseball. It’s what has made the Field of Dreams Game such a romantic idea for those around the sports world. It pays homage to an all-time great film, the rich history of baseball and our own shared history as a people.
As for the game, the White Sox will be considered the home team. The stadium itself has many of the same dimensions and features as Comiskey Park where the Sox played from 1910-1990. The 8,000-seat venue will also have a pathway leading up to the field that was made famous in the Costner-led movie.
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