Major League Baseball (MLB) is back at the "Field of Dreams" movie site in Iowa, now in a permanent ballpark, to stage another regular-season game. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
MLB's growth goals have taken the game from a military base in North Carolina to a racetrack in Tennessee, with numerous stops for photo ops around the globe in between.
But there's nothing quite like turning the bright lights on an Iowa cornfield, where home runs disappear into a sea of green stalks and ghosts of old ballplayers just might still be whispering. After playing in 2021 and 2022 at a temporary facility next to the "Field of Dreams" movie site, MLB has returned to stage another regular-season game in what is now a permanent ballpark.
The Minnesota Twins host the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday in the small town of Dyersville, where mystique and nostalgia will hop into the pennant races for a night and the pace of the big-city beat can quickly fade into the endless rolling hills.
"It's going to be really cool, having been able to see the movie when I was growing up," Phillies All-Star Kyle Schwarber said. "I've never been out there before, so I'm excited to see the corn."
Schwarber and his teammates sure won't be disappointed.
"It looks awesome this year," said Keith Rahe, the executive director of Dyersville Events, which owns and operates the complex that now stretches beyond the farmhouse and ballfield that set the 1989 film and hosts a full calendar of youth tournaments as well as high school, college, minor league and senior-level competitions.
Rahe's nephews grew up there and have carefully cared for the corn for more than a decade. Their five-person crew has worked particularly hard on those 67 acres this summer, fertilizing, transplanting and watering so their state's signature crop looks as lush as can be for Netflix's worldwide streaming audience.
"It's a big garden," Rahe said. "It takes a lot of time and energy."