Patterico's Pontifications

8/11/2019

Field Of Dreams Comes True

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:28 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Life imitating art:

Major League Baseball is headed to Dyersville, Iowa, in 2020. The Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees announced on Thursday that the two teams will play an official big-league game at the Field of Dreams movie site on Aug. 13, 2020. The game will take place at 6 p.m. and be televised on FOX.

“It’s definitely exciting,” said Roman Weinberg, the director of operations for Go The Distance Baseball, which owns the Field of Dreams movie site. “There’s nothing more American than the Field of Dreams and America’s pastime.”

Now, they’re joining hands for one big game at the beloved movie’s site. The movie, which hit theaters in 1989, centers around the 1919 White Sox and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Jackson, who was banned by MLB along with seven of his teammates for his alleged role in the White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series, inspires an Iowa farmer, played by Kevin Costner, to build a baseball field in Iowa.

[…]

The field has since become a tourist attraction over the years with fans from across the globe flocking to the Iowa cornfield to see it. Now, a pair of MLB teams will be coming. The game will take place at the site of the movie but not on the iconic diamond, Weinberg said.

“MLB plans to build actually an 8,000 seat ballpark that will allow fans to experience the movie site,” Weinberg said.

Build it and they will come, indeed.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

18 Responses to “Field Of Dreams Comes True”

  1. A fun way to close the weekend.

    Dana (fdf131)

  2. JVW should appreciate this. Arnold Rothstein, the New York gambler who fixed the 1919 Series, was featured in several Damon Runyon stories as “The Brain”, including the heart-rending one “The Brain Goes Home”:

    However, I afterwards hear that loud as they are at the funeral, it is nothing to the weep they all put on when it comes out that The Brain has Hymie Weissberger draw up a new will while he is dying and leaves all his dough to the red-headed raggedy doll, whose name seems to be O’Halloran, and who is the widow of a bricklayer and has five kids.

    Well, at first all the citizens along Broadway say it is a wonderful thing for The Brain to do, and serves his ever-loving wife and Doris and Cynthia and Bobby just right; and from the way one and all speaks you will think they are going to build a monument to The Brain for his generosity to the red-headed raggedy doll.

    But about two weeks after he is dead, I hear citizens saying the chances are the red-headed raggedy doll is nothing but one of The Brain’s old-time dolls, and that maybe the kids are his and that he leaves them the dough because his conscience hurts him at the finish, for this is the way Broadway is. But personally I know it cannot be true, for if there is one thing The Brain never has it is a conscience.

    nk (dbc370)

  3. 2. Worth noting that while Rothstein attempted to fix the series and at least one of the accused players received money from him, it is unknown how many of the accused individuals were actually complicit in the fix.

    Gryph (08c844)

  4. If you build it, they will get stuck in a traffic jam, especially since the Sox will be playing the Yankees, who normally are the biggest draw of the season anyway for other American League teams. No interstate highway within 60 miles of the field, so anyone planning to go better leave early and expect to arrive home late.

    John (c7bcb1)

  5. True, Gryph. Comiskey and Landis swept with a wide broom. A very vicious broom in the case of Shoeless Joe, as I understand, blacklisting him for life and punishing anyone in baseball who would have anything to do with him.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. 5. Based on Jackson’s performance alone, there was little reason to suspect him. The newspapers quoted him saying things in the courtroom on the stand that could not be found anywhere in the official stenographer’s records.

    And while Comiskey didn’t have the time of day for Jackson (or most of his players on a good year, for that matter), it was Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first official commissioner of Major League Baseball, who had the final say. It was never proven, but some of Jackson’s supporters believed that Landis’ harsh treatment of Jackson was a direct result of some sort of personal animus between Jackson and Comiskey.

    Gryph (08c844)

  7. No interstate highway within 60 miles of the field, so anyone planning to go better leave early and expect to arrive home late.

    I wondered about this…

    Dana (fdf131)

  8. 7. At the end of the movie, that line of cars with their headlights on fading out over the horizon seemed a little hyperbolic to me. Not so much now.

    Gryph (08c844)

  9. 1. – Indeed. thanks.

    mg (8cbc69)

  10. So cool.

    Paul Montagu (a2342d)

  11. I wonder if Pete Rose will attend.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  12. I enjoyed the film, although I also agreed with the review that called it “manipulative”. Great performances by Lancaster, Jones, Madigan and Costner.

    I read the book first, and remember it being impossible to put down.

    Dave (1bb933)

  13. 12. The actor who played Mark, Timothy Busfield, also played Poindexter in Revenge of the Nerds.

    Gryph (08c844)

  14. I spent 2014 on a project in IA. that took me to remote sites all over the state. Some might find the scenery boring but I thought it was beautiful. The people were terrific. If you get a chance go, it’s a good slice of vanishing America.

    IMO the basilica in Dyersville is much more interesting than the field but then I found the film silly. I still remember a quote from a good review: “more like a suicide squeeze than a home run”.

    harkin (58d012)

  15. Any movie Kevin Costner is in is going to be half burlesque and all Hollywood cliche.

    nk (dbc370)

  16. 6, Gryph (08c844) — 8/11/2019 @ 8:40 pm

    It was never proven, but some of Jackson’s supporters believed that Landis’ harsh treatment of Jackson was a direct result of some sort of personal animus between Jackson and Comiskey.

    Not like that. It was more like Pancho Villa executing someone for something he didn’t do. It was intended as adeterent. He maybe didn’t have anyone really guilty to punish, so he punished a few more and.or pretended tey had done more than they did.

    The death penalty, after all, is to scare the others. For that, it is not necessary that he excuted person actually be guilty as charged, just that people either believe he is, or believe the person who is responsible for the execution believes that. And it’s faster if he doesn’t have to wait till
    he finds someone.

    Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis had also imposed an unjustified $29 million fine on Standard Oil of Indiana, and imposed heavy sentences on World War I draft evaders, including some who were not guilty. (per Wikipedia)

    There’s a case to be made that Kenesaw Mountain Landis believed in deterrence more than he believed in justice.

    Sammy Finkelman (324ec1)

  17. Not only as deterrent but also punishment for not ratting out his teammates.

    Jackson knew about the scheme but said nothing, although his play indicated he was giving his best.

    harkin (58d012)

  18. 16.

    There’s a case to be made that Kenesaw Mountain Landis believed in deterrence more than he believed in justice.

    A very reasonable case, at that. Even as a judge, Landis had a reputation for theatrics and capriciousness that extended to the way he handled the black sox scandal. And for all his bloviating, even today’s Jackson supporters grudgingly acknowledge that Landis probably preserved baseball’s integrity and restored people’s faith despite the media circus surrounding the scandal.

    Gryph (08c844)


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