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DYERSVILLE, Iowa – His movies never felt like a definitive hit, not quite. But what the maintainers of “Field of Dreams” always have is a sense of duty, as if they are stewards of something valuable. That’s how Kevin Costner felt when filming here 33 years ago, and he felt it again before the Thursday night live sequel.
“It’s nuanced and lovingly, you can see that,” Costner said. “I think ‘Field of Dreams’ has benefited from very careful people all the way from the movie to this moment.”
Yet despite all the planning, all the cinematic advances Major League Baseball had put in staging a real game in a new diamond carved from the same cornfields, reality could have intervened. A storm, an explosion, an injury.
In sports, you don’t know the script until the credits come in.
The movie ended with a simple catch game. The game, as it turned out, ended with a home run by Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox. With one open and one out at the end of the ninth inning, he drove a fastball from the Yankees’ Zack Britton into the deep right. The ball disappeared into the corn beyond the fence, the White Sox won, 9-8and fireworks went off over Dyersville.
Anderson, 28, was born in Alabama four years after the release of “Field of Dreams.” He’s a Black, so he would never have played in the segregated majors of 1919, when gamblers bribed some of the White Sox to lose the World Series to Cincinnati. Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, builds the space as a haven for the damned, but many old-timers (all white) also show up to play.
Anderson’s wife saw the movie, he said, but never saw it. Would he watch now as the star of the revival?
“Maybe, I don’t know,” he said with a smile. “But tonight I definitely made a memory for everyone. It’s a huge achievement for me to leave a mark and I am absolutely grateful for that moment.”
The White Sox have won the World Series just once since the firing of Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven others, but they’re hoping to claim another one this fall: the runaway leaders in the American League Central, 20 games over .500. Costner introduced them as the “first-place” White Sox on Thursday; He called his opponents the “strong Yankees”.
The Yankees currently do not have a playoff position, but they were actually very strong on Thursday. Aaron Judge drank two homers, Brett Gardner plucked another, and Giancarlo Stanton, who practiced batting with commemorative corn ears in his back pockets, hit a left for a two-stroke forward with two outs in ninth.
It wasn’t enough though, as the White Sox beat the Yankees at their own game: Jose Abreu, Eloy Jimenez and Seby Zavala went deep from Andrew Heaney before Anderson’s finishing kick. Ghosts in the cornfields must have bent over to hide.
They may also be confused and not just by today’s helmets, TV cameras, and multicultural cadres. The Yankees scored 14 times on Thursday, four more than Jackson’s 1919 season combined. Four pitchers worked as reliefs for the White Sox and matched their totals in the 1919 World Series. Baseball may be a timeless game, but time has changed it.
For one night, no one complained about these hits and shot changes. Both teams looked very excited to be here; As soon as they arrived, they wanted to wander around.
“I know there’s a group of guys who want us to stay here for a few nights,” said the Judge. “Just because it’s so peaceful – getting a chance to get out of the city, stay in the countryside and see all this corn we’ve gathered here.”
Players cut a path through the corn to explore the movie site before hitting practice. Britton said she was surprised that the stems were even taller than Judge, who was 6 feet-7. Closer to Chicago, Liam Hendriks wandered the tiny white farmhouse in the movie and made sure to sit on the patio swing.
The actors were enthusiastic tourists, although they were a collective curiosity on the bus ride from the airport in Dubuque.
“There’s something glorious about that,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone. “Nice, right? You see people with placards and signs in front of their houses eating, waving their phones open. They’re videotaping us, we’re videotaping them. That was really neat.”
Boone has also broadcast or directed several MLB outings that count: games at a military base in Fort Bragg, NC; in Williamsport, Pa., home of the Little League World Series; and in London with the Yankees in 2019. This event was so warmly received that Commissioner Rob Manfred said the league will play another game here in 2022.
“You never get into a winning streak,” Costner said, sitting next to Manfred at a press conference. “It looks like all the teams will want to touch it.”
Boone said that even in defeat, he can recognize the power of the environment.
“This was a special and breathtaking setting for a baseball game that I can remember being a part of,” said Boone, a third-generation league player. “When we came out of the cornfields and saw the stadium, the splendor of the night as Kevin Costner stood in the short midfield is a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
Anderson, however, had the best reason to remember. He didn’t need to see the movie to do the magic.
“The fans came to see a show and we gave them a show tonight,” Anderson said.
As Anderson left the podium after his interview, he met with Hall of Fame officials in Cooperstown, NY. He brought them the gift that seemed most appropriate: nails.
Tim Anderson without shoes? Close enough.
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