- Costner kicked off the "
Field of Dreams " game with a dramatic entrance onto the field. - Then the Yankees and White Sox players entered through rows of corn.
- The moment paid homage to the classic
baseball movie "Field of Dreams," which Costner starred in.
Sometimes no words are needed to capture a moment, and that's what Major League Baseball decided to do when it kicked off its first "Field of Dreams" game Thursday night.
Before the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox took the field in Dyersville, Iowa, a little movie magic was sprinkled on the event.
Taking a page from the iconic
Dressed in all white, he didn't say a word; instead, the movie's score played as he walked from the outfield to the infield holding a baseball and looking in awe of the site.
Then something even more magical happened. Suddenly, players from the Yankees and the White Sox emerged from the cornfield. It was a movie-come-to-life moment.
-MLB (@MLB) August 12, 2021
In the 1989 movie, Costner played an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella, who one morning while walking through his cornfield hears a voice say to him, "If you build it, he will come." It leads him to tear down most of his crops to build a baseball field on his land. Then, one day, baseball players from the past, including the 1919 White Sox, suddenly come out of the cornfield and onto the ball field.
Later, one of the most memorable lines in sports-movie history is delivered. A player asks Kinsella, "Is this heaven?" In which Kinsella replies: "No, it's Iowa."
"Field of Dreams" opened to wide acclaim and was nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture. It also starred James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan, Burt Lancaster, and Ray Liotta as "Shoeless" Joe Jackson.
The movie's legacy has only grown over the decades. The baseball field shot for the movie became an Iowa tourist destination.
In 2019,
The game was originally set to be played in 2020, but it was postponed after the coronavirus pandemic forced a shortened season. But it was worth the wait.
After a back-and-forth game in which there were several lead changes, the White Sox beat the Yankees, 9-8, in dramatic fashion with a two-run walk-off homer by White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson.