Field of Dreams Game: What to know about MLB's movie-inspired matchup in an Iowa cornfield
After a one-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MLB is set to stage its Field of Dreams Game this week in Dyersville, Iowa.
The special event will drop a major league game into the famed expanse of cornfields at the site where the 1989 film starring Kevin Costner was filmed. It was originally slated to take place in August 2020. The White Sox will now face the New York Yankees a full year later.
How to watch
The Field of Dreams Game is Thursday, Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. ET. FOX will air the game nationally.
According to The Athletic, the broadcast will feature the blanketed coverage of a postseason game, but pay tribute to the film’s nostalgic tone with retro graphics and painted-on advertising signage in lieu of the usual green screens.
A one-hour pregame show will precede the matchup on FOX.
Field of Dreams Game pits White Sox vs. Yankees
The Yankees and White Sox will play in the specially located regular season game. The White Sox — whose 1919 Black Sox team plays a central part in the movie — will be the home team, and gave up a game at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The teams are beginning a three-game series, which will continue Saturday in Chicago following an off day to account for a potential weather postponement.
Tony La Russa’s White Sox team is running away with the AL Central, led by a dominant starting rotation and a young core of hitters including Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez — who recently returned from injury.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are furiously fighting to get into playoff position. After a flurry of trade deadline moves, they have been hampered by injuries and COVID-19 infections.
Where is it being played?
A new 8,000-seat stadium was built on the site made famous in the movie. It is just outside Dyersville, Iowa, about 25 miles west of Dubuque, which rests on the Mississippi River, the state’s border with Wisconsin and Illinois.
Many of the park’s dimensions and features echo old Comiskey Park, the home of the White Sox from 1910 to 1990. And a corn maze was built beyond the outfield walls.
We're exactly three weeks away from the Field of Dreams game. 😍 pic.twitter.com/ZPUborZXki
— MLB (@MLB) July 22, 2021
Is this the field from the movie?
No. The original field, still intact as a tourist attraction, was not up to major league standards, so the new park was built just to the north, with a path running from the stadium to the field made famous in the film.
Who is going to attend?
Some lucky Iowans, for one. MLB ran a ticket lottery for people who live in Iowa zip codes to purchase tickets.
Others who hope to attend will be paying exorbitant prices on the secondary market for one of the precious few seats. The cheapest tickets on StubHub as of Tuesday were $875 each, and many others were going for thousands of dollars apiece.
How often does MLB play neutral-site games?
The Field of Dreams Game follows in a line of specially located regular season MLB games.
The league has played the Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pennsylvania annually since 2017 (aside from 2020) to coincide with the Little League World Series. That game actually takes place in an even smaller park than the one built in Iowa.
Prior to the pandemic, MLB had also been making an international push. In 2019, the Yankees played the rival Boston Red Sox in two absurdly high-scoring games in London, while two other series took place in Monterrey, Mexico.
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