“Is this Heaven?”
“No… It’s Iowa.”
In 1989 America’s favorite sport was turned into a classic Hollywood film. Ray Kinsella, a fictional character from Iowa, turns part of his cornfield into a baseball diamond, after hearing a transcendent voice that told him, “If you build it, he will come.”
This is one of my all-time favorite movies, even though I am not a fan of baseball, and now it has become reality.
In case you missed the news in August, and don’t follow any national sports teams either, The Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees played a game, resulting in a White Sox victory, in a field built close to the original Field of Dreams baseball stadium in Dyersville, Iowa.
While it’s disappointing that the game wasn’t held in the actual stadium that was used in the movie, there were good reasons, according to SportingNews.com who stated a few days before the game, “It doesn’t fit MLB guidelines. According to MLB.com , it would not fit typical MLB dimensions and there would be too many baseballs getting lost in the cornfields.
The Field of Dreams website lists the infield as having MLB regulation size basepaths and mound-to-plate distances, but the outfield is 300 feet to left, 350 feet to center and 315 feet to right. By comparison, Fenway Park, the oldest stadium in baseball, is 310 feet to left — albeit, with the Green Monster — and 302 feet to right with a 390-foot distance between true center and home plate.
If every baseball that went unfielded rolled into the corn for a ground-rule double or simply flew out for a home run, the ERAs for White Sox starter Lance Lynn and Yankees starter Andrew Heaney — along with several relievers — would certainly be sky-rocketing during the game.”
Instead, an entirely new stadium was built and can comfortably accommodate the players’ abilities. Only 8,000 fans fit into this small stadium. The stadium was built as a temporary structure that will be taken down and used “potentially” in the future. And, get this, tickets were selling for more than 3,000 dollars and were only open to Iowa residents.
According to fieldofdreamsmoviesite.com, the White Sox played as the home team. Their website states, “The White Sox will be the home in the matchup because of their role in the 1989 Field of Dreams movie, in which the ghosts of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other members of the 1919 Black Sox play on the diamond in the Iowa cornfield.”
Throughout the year, or until the other field is torn down, fans wanting to see the original movie set can walk a path through cornfields, between the stadiums, and tour the home and baseball diamond that was originally used in the movie for no charge.
While there have been many events and games held on the original baseball diamond, this is the first time such an event has taken place. When the original owners sold the property to Go The Distance Baseball, the umbrella entity of the Field of Dreams Movie Site and All-Star Ballpark Heaven, they decided to preserve the property and hold regular events. Check out their site and maybe go visit the legendary movie scene for yourself!
