FIELD OF DREAMS GAME TONIGHT

Australia, Egypt, Rome, Indiana, Pennsylvania, are just suggestions for yet another Field of Dreams site, but tonight it will be right at home in Dyersville, Iowa, where the movie was filmed in 1989.

In the movie, Kevin Coster as Ray Kinsella, and who first imagined the site being pieced together on his land right outside his front door, was told, “Build it and they will come.”

So in his imagination, he did this in the cornfields of Eastern Iowa. It was right out there in the middle of the road that didn’t go that far. He had suggestions, but none were considered serious until Jerry Earl Jones come up with some ideas that fit right in.

When completed and the news broke ground, it was up to travelers to get directions to what was named the Field of Dreams, all of on the property of the Kinsella family.

Visiting there never gets old and last year even put together a Major League game between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees, and it became an exciting 9-8 White Sox victory before a huge turnout at the makeshift ballpark that could fit in maybe 8,000.

Now the population of Dyersville is listed at 4,400, so once inside the ballpark at its capacity, it almost doubles the town it plays in.

Yes, it was a throwback ballpark for our “National Pastime”, but the people did come. There wasn’t all that much parking space and traffic was backed up on a usually untraveled road, which is what it was before this field of dreams was created. It’s kind of like in the middle of nowhere, which is crazy after you see the traffic heading there.

Tonight, it’s game two between the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs, and doesn’t figure to have the flare of last year’s match-up when both teams were American League contenders.

Hopefully they will fill the seats again. There were warm temperatures in the area on Wednesday and showed a light blue sky with mild clouds.

Another site along the same lines, well, that is why several suggestions were penciled in. They were all rather interesting, especially Australia, Egypt and Rome, but it’s a site that was made in America, not a field that you can play on every day, and that’s probably the only place for another field of dreams.

Tito Francona, the general manager of the Cleveland Guardians, had a good one. He suggested a site like the Bri Ghton Hot Dog Shoppe in his hometown. His words were “Hot dogs before and after the games sounds good to me.”

There was even a suggestion regarding an airport hanger at Fort Bragg, Va., Army Base where a Major League baseball game was played between the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles and had a turned-away crowd.

Then there was talk of Bosse Field in Evansville, Ind., where parts of the movie “A League of their own” was filmed. It’s a ready-made field and  needs perhaps just some renovation.

It was back on May 10 when Ray Liotta, who played the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, passed away.

Tonight’s game has the Reds as home team and two more games of this series will be played in Cincinnati. Piped in on a two-way mic will be Reds’ first baseman Joey Votto and Cubs outfielder Ian Happ.

The game is slated for a 5 p.m. start on the Fox network.