The league will begin construction of a temporary stadium with a capacity of 8,000 neighboring the original field. If you build it, they will come.
The Chicago Black — I mean the White Sox announced Thursday that they will be playing a Major League game at the Field of Dreams in Iowa next year. The game will be played on August 13, 2020 against the New York Yankees and will count as a home game for the Sox.
It is fitting that the White Sox and Yankees will be playing this game, as the two most important players in the movie, Shoeless Joe Jackson and John Kinsella (Ray’s father), played for the White Sox and Yankees respectively. Kinsella is a fictional character, but Shoeless Joe was one of the best hitters of all time who’s career was shortened by the Black Sox scandal of 1920.
This will be the first Major League game to be played on a movie set, as well as the first MLB game played in the state of Iowa. It has yet to be confirmed if Shoeless Joe Jackson or Moonlight Graham will make an appearance, but as for the crowd, people will come.
They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack.
And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray.
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.
Hey, Dad? Do you want to go to the game?
