Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa. And there will be a Major League Baseball game played there in 2020.
The 1989 classic “Field of Dreams” is coming to life in the cornfields. MLB announced on Thursday that a regular-season game will be played on August 13, 2020, at the site where the iconic baseball movie was filmed, between the Yankees and White Sox. They will play at an 8,000-seat temporary stadium at the Dyersville farm site, and the game will be nationally televised on FOX.
A pathway through a cornfield will take fans to the ballpark, which will overlook the famous movie location. The right field wall will include windows to show the cornfields beyond the ballpark. This will be the first MLB game in Iowa.
“As a sport that is proud of its history linking generations, Major League Baseball is excited to bring a regular season game to the site of ‘Field of Dreams,'” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in an MLB press release. “We look forward to celebrating the movie’s enduring message of how baseball brings people together at this special cornfield in Iowa.”
The movie tells the story of Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, a husband and father who is tending to his cornfield when he hears a mysterious voice intone, “If you build it, he will come.” According to the American Film Institute (AFI), those words are the 39th top film quote of all-time.
“‘Field of Dreams’ captures the uniqueness of Iowans’ can-do attitude, and there’s no better place to host our state’s very first Major League game than this legendary baseball field in Dyersville,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said. “As the famous movie quote goes, ‘Is this heaven?’ ‘No it’s Iowa.’ Iowa’s truly a land of opportunity, where you can work hard, dream big and anything can happen. I look forward to this historic event in 2020.”
For the third year, MLB is holding a game at the Little League World Series site in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where the Cubs and Pirates will play on August 18. Back in 2016, the Braves and Marlins played a game at Fort Bragg, making it the first time a regular-season game in a professional sport was played on an active military base.