MLB’s Iowa debut will be hard to top
Major League Baseball could make the Field of Dreams game an annual tradition and play it for the next 100 years without being able to replicate the magic of Thursday’s inaugural event at the ballpark in a Dyersville, Iowa, cornfield.
From the stunning visuals New York Yankees Manager Aaron Boone called “breathtaking” to the atmosphere Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson referred to as “dope” — and to the ninth inning that saw the Sox blow a three-run lead only to wind up with a walk-off, 9-8 win on Anderson’s two-run, opposite-field home run — it was as close to a perfect script as MLB could’ve asked for.
It was almost as if the baseball gods deemed this beloved movie deserved a game that would last in fans’ memories as long as the film itself.
And, of course, in the grand Hollywood tradition of rebooting the classics, Commissioner Rob Manfred announced before the game there will be another one in 2022.
“You never mess with a winning streak,” actor Kevin Costner, the film’s star and focal point of the Fox Sports telecast, told reporters. “It does feel like all the teams will want to touch this.”
That makes sense. If it makes money, build it and they will come.
The Chicago Cubs are rumored to be one of next year’s participants after Manager David Ross accidentally spilled the beans during his pregame media session Wednesday at Wrigley Field.
But it won’t work nearly as well for many reasons, including the fact the 1919 Sox were part of the movie’s narrative, and the uniforms the Sox wore Thursday resembled the ones the ghosts wore in “Field of Dreams.”
The game also had some built-in juice with the first-place White Sox facing a red-hot Yankees team. All the stars aligned, and many of baseball’s biggest names — Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Jose Abreu and Anderson — came through with eye-popping moments.
Does anyone really believe the Cubs will be rebuilt quickly enough to make them relevant again in 2022? Will the sight of Patrick Wisdom in a throwback uniform walking through a cornfield deliver the same feelies as watching Eloy Jimenez or Anderson deliver on a national stage?
The answer is no, which is why MLB should let this instant classic from Dyersville remain etched in our memories and move to the next big marketing concept. Dream big, fellas.
Personally, having visited the old minor-league ballpark in Durham, N.C., used in Costner’s greatest baseball flick, “Bull Durham,” I’d like to see a “Bull Durham Game” with clips and stories of the making of the film from Costner (Crash Davis), Tim Robbins (Nuke LaLoosh) and Susan Sarandon (Annie Savoy).
Maybe they could turn on the sprinklers after the game and let the players do belly flops on the field.
The Fox Sports telecast Thursday was almost as perfect as the game, even down to the sounds of chirping crickets. The drone shot of a hot-air balloon circling the ballpark was particularly dreamlike, and the gorgeous sunset was almost too good to be true.
I did miss the Statcast graphic that displays the strike zone on every pitch so I can scream at the umpire, but was glad not to hear any discussions of launch angles or exit velocity or the “sticky stuff.” It was almost like a flashback to the olden days of baseball broadcasts in the early 2010s.
On-field reporter Ken Rosenthal wasn’t used as much as I would have liked, but his story of the stadium workers fixing the cornstalks with zip-ties after a storm damaged them was worthwhile.
All in all, it was a night to remember. The only thing missing was a closing shot of a long line of cars heading down the dark, winding road exiting the ballpark, flipping the script from the ending of the movie.
Was this heaven?
No, it was just a large corporation trying to entice the next generation to watch its product by tying the sport to a film most millennials and Gen Zers have never seen.
Oh well. Close enough.