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Mlb field of dreams game5/17/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() In 2010, Mike Stillman, a Chicago-area lawyer, decided to make a detour on a trip home from Minneapolis with his son, John, to the Field of Dreams. And Cook even had to figure out how to grow corn: “I’ve learned more about corn in the last year than I’d really like to know.” A decade in the makingīut the roots behind Thursday’s game stretch well beyond that. Roe’s BaAM Productions has had to build clubhouses that meet MLB’s requirements within giant tents located nearby. Since then, its teams have had to move around 30,000 cubic yards of material in the Iowa cornfield, bring in a combined 6,000 tons of sand and gravel, and find someone to install several towering light posts that will illuminate the park on game day. MLB broke ground on the property two years ago this month. Many are now being offered for prices well into the four digits. The already sold-out game has seen ticket prices skyrocket in the resale market, with the cheapest ones on StubHub going for as much as $875 on the afternoon of Aug. Just 8,000 people will be allowed into the stadium Thursday, but, if ticket sales are any indication, fans do want in. By bringing this game to life, I think we’re really able to connect with an audience who may not be engaged on a daily basis.” “This is one of the special things about baseball, it transcends society and culture. “There’s an intersection of this game with not only your avid baseball fan, but also with the person who loved the movie,” MLB chief operations and strategy officer Chris Marinak told Fortune. MLB has been pushing to host more games throughout the 162-regular-game season in markets where its teams do not hold a presence in a bid to expand the game’s appeal after years of waning interest in baseball. (The city’s logo even features a baseball.) So it was only fitting that the town in northeastern Iowa would become home to the latest MLB pop-up game, joining Sydney Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Williamsport, Pa. The game will be broadcast on Fox, and depending on how it goes, the site could host future gatherings according to MLB.ĭyersville has become a baseball mecca of sorts since Field of Dreams was released 32 years ago. On Thursday, the Chicago White Sox will play the New York Yankees from that same cornfield located just 1,000 feet away from the original Field of Dreams in a newly built ballpark. ![]() “We have to figure out a way to make this happen,” Roe recalled telling MLB after that fateful visit to the site where the 1989 movie Field of Dreams was filmed in an interview with Fortune. So, in a state where cornfields cover more than a third of the land, Roe, tape measure in hand, traipsed through muddy farmland to see whether MLB could pull off its own Field of Dreams. It was 2015, and the head of BaAM Productions had been sent to the American heartland by Major League Baseball with fellow sporting event gurus like Todd Barnes of Populous and BrightView’s Murray Cook to scope out what could be the next stop on the campaign to bring America’s pastime somewhere new: Dyersville, Iowa. ![]()
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