Thursday night’s Field of Dreams game was almost too good to be true. As part of a brilliantly executed marketing strategy, the New York Yankees faced off against the Chicago White Sox in Dyersville, Iowa, paying homage to the 1989 sports drama Field of Dreams featuring Kevin Costner.
The whole event could not have been scripted any better. From the aesthetics to the relentless competition, last night was an instant classic and a much-needed victory for the MLB, a league that has recently faced difficulties in marketing star players and catering the sport to younger audiences.
What made the event particularly captivating was its departure from the modern, commercialized presentation of today’s game and its embrace of baseball’s romantic qualities that made the sport America’s national pastime. There was a palpable purity to the game, manifested in a return to baseball’s rustic origins. The field on which the two clubs competed was built adjacently to the original featured in the movie and is surrounded by 159 acres of corn. Given the centrality of the White Sox in Field of Dreams, the field was also designed to honor Comiskey Park, marked by a 12-foot wall in center field and similar dimensions. The old school feel was further exemplified by the hand-operated wooden scoreboard behind the right-field fence, as well as the retro uniforms rocked by both teams.
The game itself exceeded the sky-high expectations, a back-and-forth slugfest capped by a come-from-behind, walk-off home run drilled by Tim Anderson.
Under the Iowa sunset, Andrew Heaney took the mound for the Yankees while Lance Lynn started for the Sox. Both pitchers ran into some trouble early, with Heaney allowing 7 runs in 5 innings of action, while Lynn allowed 4 runs through 5 innings in his outing.
Jose Abreu kicked off the scoring in the bottom of the first with a solo shot to left. The Yanks then jumped ahead in the third with Aaron Judge knocking a three-run homer to right. This lead proved to be temporary, as the Sox retaliated with four runs in the bottom half of the inning, with Tim Anderson pulling an RBI double, followed by Eloy Jiménez slapping a three-run home run of his own.
There were a total of eight homers in this battle, including a two-run dagger by Seby Zavala and a solo dinger by Brett Gardner.
Fortunately for baseball fans, ninth-inning fireworks saved the best for last. With two outs, Judge crushed his second homer of the game, a two-run bomb to right-center that cut the lead to one. Following a Joey Gallo walk, Giancarlo Stanton launched a dramatic two-run blast to left that pulled the Yankees ahead by one.
However, in the bottom of the ninth, after a Zavala walk, Anderson crushed a walk-off two-run tater to right to put away the Yanks.
While the game ended up being an agonizing defeat for Yankee fans, the entire event, from the introductory entrances to the late-inning heroics, was a perfect celebration of the sport.
As Ray Kinsella once said, “Maybe this is heaven.”
