‘Clear-cut favorites to win AL pennant’: How Red Sox have surged up standings
Bob Nightengale and Steve Gardner break down the Red Sox’s surge up the standings and why Boston has emerged as the clear-cut favorite to win the AL pennant.
Major League Baseball just loves the cornfields.
The league will return to the Field of Dreams site in 2027 for a fourth game, the Des Moines Register reported Thursday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the plans. The Des Moines Register is part of the USA TODAY Network. The report came hours before the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins played the third edition in Dyersville, Iowa. The teams for next year have not been chosen, and the source told the Register that announcement will come later.
Of course, that is all contingent on there being a 2027 season.
MLB’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1. Owners have pushed publicly for a salary cap and players have said flatly that they will not accept one. A lockout starting in December would put the entire 2027 season in question, and no specialty event survives that. MLB has not had games canceled by the work stoppage since 1995. The 2022 lockout pushed Opening Day back, but the schedule was make whole.
Worth noting that MLB’s 2027 schedule, released earlier this year, does not list a Feld of Dreams game. That’s not unusual. The Phillies and Twins were not announced until last November, nine months out.
The first Field of Dreams game was in 2021, when the White Sox beat the Yankees 9-8 on a Tim Anderson walk-off home run that vanished into the corn in right field. The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds 4-2 in 2022. Then baseball left for three years.
The reason it can come back faster now is because there is a permanent ballpark there now, built a long line drive away from the movie set field. The stadium, which can seat 8,000 fans for these games, was opened in June and will be the home of a Northwoods League team in 2027.
The event has grown into more than a game. Netflix streamed it Thursday night, the first time it was exclusively streamed. More than 25 Hall of Famers were on hand.