Has there ever been a better year than 2020 to take a vacation to the middle of nowhere? That's what I decided to do last week. I went to Dyersville, Iowa, to visit the Field of Dreams movie site.
The White Sox are scheduled to play the St. Louis Cardinals on Aug. 13 at the site, on a field that is under construction near the field where the movie was filmed.
The photo above was taken from inside the farmhouse. The Field of Dreams is in the foreground, but if you look out past the corn in left field, you can see the light towers for the field that is being built for Major League Baseball. In case you were wondering, the Field of Dreams is not regulation size, so that is why the Sox and Cardinals cannot play there.
The Field of Dreams is about a three-hour drive from my home in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. It's not an all-day kind of thing by any stretch -- we spent about two hours there. There's a guided tour of the farmhouse, which takes about 45 minutes. That's the one thing that costs money; it's $20 per adult.
However, access to the field is free. You can play catch, run the bases, take pictures, throw your kid batting practice, whatever you want. Just be forewarned -- there is no running water on the farm, so don't go if you're squeamish about using a portable toilet in this time of COVID-19.
There's also a gift shop with "Baseballism" T-shirts, at which I overpaid for two shirts that I didn't really need.
The tour is a good thing to do if you're a fan of the movie. There's some baseball memorabilia in the house, which is cool, but our tour guide focused on describing scenes from the movie that were shot in certain places in the house. She also offered some anecdotes on behind-the-scenes things that happened during filming. In case you were wondering, Dubuque, Iowa, and Galena, Ill., are featured in the movie, because there isn't much to Dyersville.
In fact, I never saw the town of Dyersville on my drive to the site. I was in the middle of cornfields, wondering if I was going the right direction, when suddenly the field and farmhouse appeared in my line of sight.
Not that anyone is interested, but here's some other photos I took during my visit:
I took this picture of the farmhouse while standing on the ballfield.
There's me sitting at the entrance. Yes, I am a real person, not a bot.
I did not know that there was "Team of Dreams" celebrity game that is played at the Field of Dreams. This picture in the farmhouse shows some of the players who have appeared through the years:
Jim Rice,
Reggie Jackson,
Rickey Henderson,
Pete Rose,
Paul Molitor,
Wade Boggs,
Ozzie Smith,
Rod Carew,
Frank Thomas,
Carlton Fisk,
Jim Palmer,
Bruce Sutter,
Dwight Gooden and
Johnny Bench. How's that for a lineup?
Yep, there's me on the pitcher's mound.
There's a curio cabinet on the first floor of the farmhouse that has some cool stuff, such as ...
... a bobblehead of Roger Bossard (second from left)! Other bobbleheads in this picture include
Kirby Puckett, 1919 Cincinnati Reds manager
Pat Moran and
Robin Yount.
And there's me again. More shameless self-promotion.
Apparently, former commissioner Bud Selig is a big supporter of the Field of Dreams. I couldn't stand Selig as a commissioner, but at least he is a baseball man. His tenure looks like the "good ole days" when compared to current commissioner Rob Manfred.
And here's a picture of the actors who portrayed the 1919 White Sox walking out of the corn.
It's too bad I didn't get to the Field of Dreams a couple of hours earlier than I did. The day I was there, a TV crew was there to interview fans about the upcoming game between the Sox and the Cardinals. The reporters apparently found some St. Louis fans to talk with, but they were saddened that no Sox fans were around at the time they were working on the story. If I had showed up then, I probably would have been interviewed for the local news.
Oh well. If you're a baseball fan, or a fan of the movie "Field of Dreams," this place in Iowa is a nice little day trip. I recommend it, especially if you're passing through northeast Iowa for whatever reason.
