Yankees-White Sox to Play Regular Season MLB Game at ‘Field of Dreams’ Site in 2020

soxhop411

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If you build it, they will come.

In a new initiative, Major League Baseball is planning to play a special game at the location of the 1989 Kevin Costner feature film Field of Dreams in Iowa.

The Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees will play a regular season game on Aug. 13, 2020 in Dyersville, Iowa, at the site of the beloved baseball flick. What's more, the league will begin construction on a temporary 8,000-seat ballpark on the Dysersville site that neighbors the iconic movie location. A pathway through a cornfield will take fans to the ballpark, which will overlook the famed site. The right field wall will include windows to show the cornfields beyond the ballpark. Aspects of the ballpark’s design will pay homage to Chicago’s Comiskey Park, home of the White Sox from 1910-1990, including the shape of the outfield and bullpens beyond the center field fence.
For baseball purists, the White Sox will be the home team, with the Thursday game followed by a Friday off-day before resuming the three-game series in Chicago.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mlb-sets-2020-game-at-field-dreams-location-1230160https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-white-sox-game-at-field-of-dream-site
This is actually a pretty awesome idea and i might try and get tickets (if they don’t sell out in the first 5 min they go on sale)

Edit: here is a render via the Hollywood reporter article. :

25542
 
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bankshot1

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Maybe a day before the game, MLB and the HoF will make a simultaneous announcement that upon considerable deliberation, that Shoeless Joe has been voted into the HoF.
 

terrynever

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Maybe a day before the game, MLB and the HoF will make a simultaneous announcement that upon considerable deliberation, that Shoeless Joe has been voted into the HoF.
The marketing value would be amazing. Great idea. Will never happen.
 

Murderer's Crow

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This is the only time I would also endorse wearing the old school uniforms.

Also, they don't need the Yankees for this. They could pick any two teams and people would enjoy this.
 

uncannymanny

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Seriously? You think MLB will be marketing for local residents and would have even the slightest bit of trouble selling this out? They could sell out Teletubbies vs Antifa here.
 

bankshot1

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Yankee Stadium is the second hardest AL park to hit homers in this year according to park factors.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/sort/HRFactor
Taking a dive into a shallow pool, with little knowledge about the methodology, something seems a little screwy about the park factor #s, as Y-Stadium is ranked hardest for runs scored, for a team that leads (or close to) MLB in runs. Are the Yankees scoring just on the road?

And generally Y-Stadium is among the top 5-easist in HR factor And we all understand and accept its RF..
 

jon abbey

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Taking a dive into a shallow pool, with little knowledge about the methodology, something seems a little screwy about the park factor #s, as Y-Stadium is ranked hardest for runs scored, for a team that leads (or close to) MLB in runs. Are the Yankees scoring just on the road?

And generally Y-Stadium is among the top 5-easist in HR factor And we all understand and accept its RF..
I agree that it's strange, but I think we've seen this year that if NY played their home games in BAL, they'd hit about two trillion HRs (admittedly getting to face the Orioles staff helps a lot).
 

bankshot1

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I've got a feeling that the anomaly is that with the juiced ball and all teams hitting dingers at a record pace, the calculations also needs to be juiced to account for the juice.
 

Sad Sam Jones

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Maybe a day before the game, MLB and the HoF will make a simultaneous announcement that upon considerable deliberation, that Shoeless Joe has been voted into the HoF.
In theory, I'd be okay this, but in practice... aren't Pete Rose fans insufferable enough already?
 

E5 Yaz

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That's a dang lot of construction for a temporary stadium.

And where are they going to park?
 

cromulence

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Interested in the other logistics of this. Is it easy access in and out of Dyersville? Hotel availability? I guess for a one day publicity stunt it probably doesn't matter much, but I'm still curious.
It's been almost twenty years since I was there, but I remember it basically being the middle of nowhere, just like the helicopter shot at the end of the movie. You pull up to a parking lot off a country road and that's it. You're there. Parking and getting in/out will definitely be rough even with only 8,000 people.
 

YTF

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It's been almost twenty years since I was there, but I remember it basically being the middle of nowhere, just like the helicopter shot at the end of the movie. You pull up to a parking lot off a country road and that's it. You're there. Parking and getting in/out will definitely be rough even with only 8,000 people.
Perhaps a massive shuttle effort for one day is doable.
 

Joe D Reid

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It's going to have to be some kind of shuttle because the roads can't handle ~5,000 cars in a single burst.

For anybody in Mass with time on their hands, Dyersville is on US Hwy 20, which is the longest highway in the US and starts pretty much under the Citgo sign in downtown Boston. The game would be an amazing centerpiece to a road trip--start at Fenway and end at the Field of Dreams. Or, hell, keep going to Oregon and hit up Yellowstone on the way. I did the whole thing 15-20 years ago and had a blast.

EDIT: Cooperstown is like 20-30 minutes off US 20 in New York, too. Hell, I'm talking myself into this.
 
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Awesome Fossum

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Maybe a day before the game, MLB and the HoF will make a simultaneous announcement that upon considerable deliberation, that Shoeless Joe has been voted into the HoF.
That's an awesome idea. Especially considering the film's themes around forgiveness and reconciliation. Hall of Fame might not be doable, but I think Manfred has the power to posthumously reinstate Jackson.
 

McBride11

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Can't they just cut the outfield wall as a wall of corn?? Maybe just cut a chain link fence (or something softer) 2-3 rows into the corn for the aesthetics. Then for intros have each of the players walk out of the corn. C'mon MLB
 

Ale Xander

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Because MLB wants to do gimmickry while simultaneously not really being confident enough that it will work, so get the most popular team in the sport with tons of rich fans as insurance.
Yup
If they're not confident, it should be the Cubs playing the White Sox
If they are confident, it should be the Twins or Royals
 

Spacemans Bong

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I'm so, so, so curious to see what Cubs-Cardinals next year in London will look like. One of my friends snagged a ticket and now thinks baseball is complete shit. No more Yankees or Red Sox, no more Dutch players either (there were a lot of Dutch people there).

We'll see. It could be fine - I want it to be fine, I got to go to major league games this year for the first time since 2016 - but I could easily see 25,000 empty seats for each game too.