MLB Makes Cast Change In ‘Field Of Dreams’ Movie Site Game

The dream for the state’s first Major League Baseball game is still alive at a ballfield in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, but the cast has changed for the anticipated Aug. 13 game that was thrown a curveball by the coronavirus.

The Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals are now scheduled to face off in the temporary but regulation 8,000-seat stadium overlooking the “Field of Dreams” movie site on a farm near Dyersville.

Originally, the White Sox were scheduled to play the New York Yankees.

MLB didn’t give a reason for the matchup change, but the involvement of the White Sox is integral to the scheduled game riffing off the 1989 blockbuster movie with an ensemble cast of Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, Timothy Busfield and, in his final film role, Burt Lancaster.

Costner’s character plows up his cornfield after hearing a mysterious voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.”

The “he” is the spirit of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who was banned from baseball along with other members of the 1919 White Sox team for throwing the World Series.

READ: ‘Field Of Dreams’ Is America’s Hope For A Diamond In Rough Times

But now that construction of the stadium featuring design elements of Chicago’s original Comiskey Park is nearing completion, will fans be able to come?

Maybe.

MLB has opened ticket sales for the game, but it said in a statement the schedule still hinges on the coronavirus recovery.

“We hope to have the option to play,” MLB said. “Construction is continuing, and we are following all CDC and state protocols regarding recommended safety practices, including social distancing, washing hands, and temperature checks before arriving to the site.”

The Cardinals are replacing the Yankees under the shortened, regionally based schedule that limits travel between regions to limit the spread of the virus. When MLB finalizes the schedule next week, teams will play only those in their divisions. The Yankees play in the East Division, while the White Sox and Cardinals play in the Central Division.

Construction of the stadium began last summer after MLB announced the Field of Dreams game. Like the ghost players in “Field of Dreams,” the stadium in the cornfield will disappear after the game is played.

But the Field of Dreams Movie Site will endure.

Thousands of fans of the movie, based on the W.P. Kinsella book "Shoeless Joe," visit the site in typical years, which isn’t about baseball at all.

"It's about the pursuit of one's dreams, redemption, just being able to persevere past all of the trials and tribulations people face throughout their lives," Roman Weinberg, the director of operations for Go The Distance Baseball, which owns the site, told Patch.

"It gives them hope," he said. "It's so simple yet so powerful, because the movie presents it in such a simple way."