IT’S PERFECT

A tip of the hat and a big congratulations to Major League Baseball. I wanted to include this little congratulatory epilog at the end of last week’s blog, but it completely slipped my mind, even after my proofread. I blame the Alzheimer’s. The inaugural Field of Dreams game was a week ago last Thursday. To paraphrase Mr. Kevin Costner, it was perfect. Yes, MLB was posturing a bit and deservedly so. Yes, the game had the look of a made-for-television event. The game was watched by an average of just under six million people. On a Thursday night. It was the most watched regular season game in sixteen years. Perhaps MLB should promote more games like this.

In the movie, a voice tells Kevin Costner “If you build it, he will come.” It wasn’t quite that easy getting Major League Baseball to come to Iowa and play on the Field of Dreams. In 2012 an investment group headed by Denise Stillman bought the field for $3.4 million. Their dream was to build All-Star Baseball Heaven, a youth baseball complex featuring 24 fields, while preserving the original field from the movie. In 2015 the owners became embroiled in a lawsuit brought by neighboring property owners, who felt the changed traffic patterns would have a negative impact on the area. They also claimed that the owners had illegally changed the zoning in their favor. This prevented a game of any kind from being played there for a number of years.

While all of this was going on, Stillman met and married Tom Mietzel in 2016. He shared her vision and, together, they fought off and won the lawsuit. Then, in 2018, they discovered that Denise had a rare form of liver cancer. At the time, doctors gave her a year to live. In spite of the prognosis, or perhaps because of it, Denise and Tom doubled down on their efforts in trying to bring Major League Baseball to Iowa. She actually lived another 18 months before finally passing away in November 2018. The last weeks of her life, when she could no longer speak, she was still sending emails to Major League Baseball in an effort to get them to bring the game to Iowa. Even knowing she would never live to see it. After Denise’s death, Tom took over as CEO and continued to push Major League Baseball. After years of lawsuits and discussion, Major League Baseball finally agreed to play the game in 2020. Then came the pandemic, delaying the game until 2021.

It almost seemed as if the game was never meant to be. With all the preparations in place, a freak storm hit a few days before the game and the corn had been battered down. Without even blinking, the owners simply bought stakes and spent the next two days, working into the late hours, staking the corn and tying it upright. Oh, and the game wasn’t played on the exact same field built for the movie, even though that field still exists. That field is actually adjacent to the so called, temporary field, that Major League Baseball built. As the Field of Dreams game was progressing, kids were actually playing ball on the original field. The new field, seating capacity 8,000, had the intimate look and feel of a minor league park. It even featured an old-style scoreboard with people hanging numbers on the board after each inning. Magnificent aerial shots showed baseball’s newest diamond glittering in a dark green sea of row upon row of corn stalks.

As the festivities began, a gate in center field swung open and Kevin Costner emerged from the cornfield, much like Ray Liotta, as Shoeless Joe Jackson, did in the movie. Costner moved to a spot in the outfield, just beyond second base, and welcomed the crowd with an eloquent monologue that finished with two simple words. It’s perfect. At that point, both teams wearing throwback jerseys, emerged from the cornfield in groups of three and four. Each player approached Costner in turn to shake his hand, before taking up their positions along the second and third base lines.

And what about the game itself. Major League Baseball could not have scripted a better game. There were the mighty Chicago White Sox, running away with the American League central division. They were facing off against the New York Yankees, the second most hated team in baseball. But with a long history of winning. With a talent rich team, they were supposed to do more winning this season. But, after a slow start, they found themselves in third place in the eastern division at the All-Star break. But with all that talent, they have been surging since the break, slipping past Boston and into second place behind Tampa Bay with the fourth best record in the American League.

The game itself lived up to all the hype. The White Sox took a 7 – 4 lead going into the top of ninth inning. With two outs and a runner on, Aaron Judge hit his second home run of the night making the score 7 – 6. Two batters later, Giancarlo Stanton duplicated Aaron Judge’s feat with a two-run homer of his own. That put the Yankees up 8 – 7. It was now the bottom of the ninth inning. Tim Anderson came up with one out and a runner on first base. Swinging at the first pitch, he smashed the ball into right field, an opposite field walk off home run into the corn maze. The eighth homer that night. Then, in a scene more reminiscent of The Natural, he circled the bases with fireworks going off in the background.

Yes sir, this game had it all. It’s a shame Denise Stillman never got to witness her dream, but we all owe her a debt of thanks for her efforts. The game was such a big success that MLB has announced a second game to be played next year. This one will feature the Chicago Cubs against the Cincinnati Reds. That should be a good game. I don’t know if it could possibly top the game we witnessed last week. But imagine if it does.

This was a quick blog. Hope you saw the game. If you didn’t, you can see highlights on YouTube. And make sure you watch the game next year. Don’t forget to leave your comments and I’ll catch up with you next week. Until then, like I always say, swing for the fences.