Field of Dreams keeps reality on deck

DYERSVILLE, Iowa – After batting practice Wednesday at the Field of Dreams, TJ Bradford was asked if he focused on hitting the line – or throwing baseballs into corn.

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t mean to hit him in the corn,” Bradford replied. “I hope I can get one out during the game.”

• Watch tonight with pre-game coverage starting at 6 ET (FOX)

The game in Bradford’s mind was “A Dream Fulfilled,” the game of Chicago and New York’s top youth teams a day before the White Sox and Yankees meet Thursday in the Field of Dreams Game.

The alluring joy of this place is so palpable that I would expect to hear a similar response from Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Tim Anderson or José Abreu after their BP 24 hours later.

Because as long as you’re at Field of Dreams, reality waits in the circle on the bridge – and, like Moonlight Graham, never manages to beat.

On Thursday, the world of baseball will celebrate the sport in its most basic form, on a field where temporary stands accommodate twice as many spectators (8,000) as there are residents of Dyersville itself.

Still, there’s nothing strange about bringing the White Sox and Yankees to town. The concept has been in various forms of development since 2015. Construction on the MLB grounds – a few hundred yards from the film site – began in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the field’s debut, which was planned for 2020..

The project was nearing completion when the game was postponed last year. The efforts to maintain the fields – and add innovations – have required extraordinary care from Major League Baseball and contractors BrightView Pro, Populous and BaAM Productions.

We love numbers in baseball, and here’s one to remember: 30,000 – as in, construction crews moved 30,000 cubic yards of material in order to clear the area and level the ground needed to build the baseball field. the MLB. You will see why Thursday night, if you notice the upward slope of the cornfields past the left field (corn) wall. The natural slope of the field had to be smoothed out in order to build an MLB caliber playing surface.

As your eyes trace the perimeter of the outfield, you will notice a few other unique features. The batter’s eye is a perfect backdrop, shaped like a country barn with a dark brown tint. The lifters’ pens are located beyond the wall in the central field, a nod to their location in the original Comiskey park. And there’s a hand-operated dashboard in the right field, completing the aesthetic that would have been familiar to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the film’s other “ghost players”.

Most of the stadium’s seats are positioned at the bottom of the third base line, so spectators – the lucky ones from Iowa who have won a ticket lottery – can spot the MLB playing field with the field of cinema looming in the distance.

Naturally, we would expect players to come in for the pre-game presentations via the cornfields… because we asked them to look for copies of the book Terence Mann hinted he would write about. is exactly “over there”.

And why not? Here, authenticity and fantasy are close cousins. In the outside world, big ideas meet skepticism. On those 200 acres, as the corn stalks sway and the baseball gloves burst, idealism is undefeated.

Consider again Wednesday’s game between the New York Under 14s DREAM and the Chicago White Sox Amateur City Elite (ACE).

DREAM is a community-based sports and charter school program made up of students from East Harlem and the South Bronx, nearly 90% of whom are eligible for free or discounted meal programs.

The White Sox founded ACE in 2007, to provide resources, mentorship and access to baseball to African American youth in Chicago, including financial support for travel baseball programs that are often too expensive for families of Chicagoans. underserved neighborhoods.

The children of Chicago and New York City grow up 800 miles from each other, but they share a common passion for play and a desire to reach higher levels. Bradford, the New York star, told me his dream was to be a Major League player, “to have the opportunity to play with great guys, like I am today.”

There is another word for these ambitions: Dreams.

“My father played [baseball] when he was a kid, ”CAOT receiver Jamison Jones told me. “I just want to continue this dream. I want to be successful because he never really had the chance to go.

“I want to do it for him. I liked it. I started young and I will continue.

The scale of the MLB at Field of Dreams project is almost incomprehensibly vast – similar, perhaps, to the journey of a child’s first wrestling match to the major leagues. ACE Chicago graduate Corey Ray did it with the Milwaukee Brewers. Ed Howard, another ACE alumnus, was the Chicago Cubs’ first-round pick last year. In all, over 225 ACE participants have been awarded college scholarships.

And what better than this place to appreciate the power and the promise of courageously setting a goal?

“I had a conversation with [the team] before you get here, just understand what the movie was about, ”said ACE director David Reed. “It’s about having a passion. Once you believe in something, don’t let anyone change your perspective on yourself. It doesn’t matter what it is – life, baseball.

“Always have faith in yourself, just like this guy did when he created the estate. He had faith no matter what. I just want these guys to come here today and have all the faith in the world in their talents.This is your chance to shine before the world.

And they did. The final score on Wednesday was ACE 8, DREAM 7.

To Judge and Stanton, Anderson and Abreu, and all the other Yankees and White Sox lucky enough to bring their bats and gloves to Dyersville, like so many baseball pilgrims before them:

Now it’s your turn.