Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

FIELD leaves players in utter amazement.

- CHICAGO TRIBUNE

DYERSVILLE, Iowa — Chicago White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito stared at the batter’s eye shaped as a barn in the cornfield beyond the center-field wall.

Standing in the dugout along the third- base line wearing a vintage Sox uniform that was inspired by what the team wore in the early 20th century, Giolito took in all the festivitie­s associated with playing a game in a cornfield.

“It blew me away,” Giolito said of his first reaction to seeing the temporary 8,000seat ballpark on the Dyersville farm where the Academy Award-nominated 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” was filmed. “I was expecting to see a lot of corn in the outfield, but I wasn’t expecting these kinds of attention to detail in the dugout.

“And the batter’s eye really gets my attention. They obviously put a lot of work into this.”

The Sox and Yankees began a three-game series with a slight detour on the way to Guaranteed Rate Field, meeting Thursday in the Field of Dreams game. Thursday’s opener took place in Dyersville, with the series scheduled to resume Saturday and Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“A lot of us, we had our phones out, taking videos, taking pictures,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “Getting a chance to be at the Field of Dreams and play a game here, and to represent the Yankees here, never in my life did I think I would experience this.”

Before the game, players gathered in the outfield for team photos. They walked on a path through a cornfield from the park to the movie set.

“My camera reel is pretty much full right now,” Sox reliever Liam Hendriks said. “I walked through the bullpen. There’s no fence right behind the bullpen, so I ran through the cornfields there.

“I walked to the other side, I took some photos on the porch swing of the house. I actually walked through the house. The guys who were staying there tonight, who won it through an auction, they’re White Sox fans, so I was able to take a photo with them and walk through the house, which was fantastic. It’s cool. All I’m waiting on is Kevin [Costner], Ray [Liotta] and James Earl [Jones] to come down, and we can figure it out.”

Fans were greeted by cardboard cutouts of players in the cornfield as they made their way to their seats.

“I got to take some pictures, I got to see myself on a poster,” Sox shortstop Tim Anderson said. “I’m definitely enjoying the moment.”

Costner, who starred in the movie and was among those in attendance Thursday, also noted the attention to detail at the ballpark.

“It’s with love,” Costner said. “You can see it.”

Costner walked through the cornfield to the park, followed by Sox and Yankees players as the “Field of Dreams” score played minutes before the first pitch.

Major League Baseball Commission­er Rob Manfred said a Field of Dreams game will be played again next August but declined to say which teams would be involved.

Hendriks took pride in being involved Thursday, which was the first major league game played in the state. He has plenty of photos of corn to prove it.

“I’m wearing my game pants right now, so I was actively trying to avoid getting dirty,” Hendriks said of his trip through the cornfield. “But other than that, it was awesome. It’s a unique smell that I didn’t quite anticipate. But it was cool. That’s the iconic thing of what you want to do at an event like this. It’s the iconic thing I was looking forward to more than anything. And so being able to run through there, get some photos in there has been fantastic.

“I’m sure at some point in the near future, anyone who follows me on Instagram is going to get very, very sick of corn photos. Now I’m going to relate everything to corn. Whether it be cream corn, street corn, jalapeno corn, cornstalks, whatever it is. It was awesome. It definitely lived up to the experience.”

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