Actor Ray Liotta (right) played Chicago White Sox Shoeless Joe Jackson in the movie Field of Dreams the real Shoeless Joe Jackson (left) in Cleveland uniform (circa 1915) just before he joined the White Sox (photo from Zimbio)

Field of Dreams Game Yankees vs. White Sox on Thursday

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

Amaury Pi-González

One of the most iconic baseball movies ever, “Field of Dreams” in 1989, a sports fantasy drama, will take place in real life, this Thursday August 12, an American League, Major League game between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox, the two protagonists on the film in Dyersville, Iowa.

But this time it will not be a fantasy, but a reality. Two great franchises, contending this 2021 season will play the game on a temporary field adjacent to the original corn field where the movie was shot. A stadium with capacity for 8,000 people was build just for this game.

Members of the “Field of Dreams” cast will also be on hand, including leading man Kevin Costner. The movie was based on a true story about Shoeless Joe Jackson who played from 1908 to 1920, mostly in left field with the Chicago White Sox.

Although not in the movie, Shoeless Joe ended with a .356 lifetime batting average and literally showed Babe Ruth how to hit. He would be a Hall of Famer but is not, because of the 1919 Black Sox betting scandal. Betting is the “mortal sin” for a baseball player (Pete Rose) that has not changed for more than a century.

The movie is from the 1982 novel by Canadian author WP Kinsella. The game was postponed from its planned 2020 debut by the pandemic and it will mark the first MLB game in the State of Iowa. Fox will broadcast the game at 5PM Iowa Central time and the first pitch around 6:15 PM Central time.

Joe Buck and John Smoltz will call the game and Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci will serve as reporters. Uniforms for Yankees and White Sox of that era were made for the game, as they will be re-created by those used by such stars of the past such as Shoeless Joe Jackson and Eddie Cicotte.

Thursday it will not be Universal Studios who will be in charge of the production, but Major League Baseball, Commissioner Robert Manfred, The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, FOX Sports and the city of Dyersville, Iowa. Major League Baseball hit a home run with this production and I would say it is “must watch television” for the baseball fan.

After almost two years of games with no fans because of the pandemic and all kinds of challenges and changes to the game of baseball on the field, this idea is one of the best things that the game can do to raise interest and even curiosity with the average baseball fan.

 Film: One of the best lines from “Field of Dreams” 1989. Actor Ray Liotta playing Shoeless Joe Jackson, line:  “Ty Cobb wanted to play. But none of us could stand the sunnabitch when we were alive –So we told him to Stick It!!”.

And probably the easiest to remember, when Costner was walking alone inside the corn fields around his ranch, a voice that whispered; “If you build it, he will come” Dyersville, Iowa, population 4,130.  Des Moines, biggest city in Iowa is 190 miles away (2 hours 53 minutes by car) Forecast for the game: Sunny 88F clear skies. Attention Iowa:  Play Ball! 

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio play by play voice on the Oakland A’s flagship station 1010 KIQI LeGrande San Francisco and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com