{"id":999535,"date":"2026-08-14T04:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/999535\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T04:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:18:15","slug":"field-of-dreams-pregame-show-features-26-hall-of-famers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/999535\/","title":{"rendered":"Field of Dreams pregame show features 26 Hall of Famers"},"content":{"rendered":"

DYERSVILLE, Iowa (AP) \u2014 Major League Baseball<\/a> came back to the Field of Dreams<\/a> carrying a big piece of Cooperstown.<\/p>\n

The pregame pomp before the Minnesota Twins<\/a> played the Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> \u2014 adjacent to the farmland where the 1989 fantasy was filmed \u2014 featured 26 members of the Hall of Fame emerging from the outfield corn just as the ghost players<\/a> did in the movie.<\/p>\n

With some of the loudest cheers saved for former Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt and former Twins catcher Joe Mauer, the capacity crowd of about 8,000 at the newly constructed ballpark in northeast Iowa soaked up the surreal atmosphere as the aged stars strolled into the infield for proper introductions.<\/p>\n

Fireworks were launched from the cornfield during the national anthem, and Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber followed with his own big bang \u2014 a stalk shot to right on Twins starter Taj Bradley\u2019s third pitch of the game that set the tone for a 7-1 win<\/a> on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

After stealing the show at the inaugural 2021 event<\/a>, which was played on the same footprint at a temporary setup that also hosted the 2022 game, Kevin Costner did not appear. <\/p>\n

But the star of the film \u2014 as the restless farmer Ray Kinsella who reconnects with his late father by playing catch on his front-yard ballfield \u2014 narrated the pregame video that helped pump some old-guard nostalgia through the new-school broadcast on global streaming giant Netflix.<\/p>\n

Both teams emerged from the corn together to take their places along the lines like on opening day, and Twins All-Star Byron Buxton<\/a> \u2014 who came off the injured list in the afternoon to play \u2014 took the microphone to evoke a line from James Earl Jones<\/a>, who played the author Terence Mann in the movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one constant through all the years has been baseball,\u201d Buxton said before Schwarber followed with a brief script on an idyllic late-summer night after heavy rain moved through the area earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

Then came the legends, and living ones at that, unlike those wool-clad lads in the movie. <\/p>\n

Schmidt and Steve Carlton wore Phillies uniforms along with Jim Kaat, who played for both teams. Mauer and Bert Blyleven donned Twins jerseys. The others \u2014 Andruw Jones, Harold Baines, Fred McGriff, Adri\u00e1n Beltr\u00e9, Andre Dawson, Larry Walker, Cal Ripken Jr., Iv\u00e1n Rodr\u00edguez, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, Tony P\u00e9rez, Tony La Russa, Jeff Kent, Fergie Jenkins, Joe Torre, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Rollie Fingers, Lee Smith and Trevor Hoffman \u2014 helped form a half-ring around the diamond to represent about one-third of the Cooperstown contingent that\u2019s still alive.<\/p>\n

This was the largest such gathering at a ballpark, not including the annual ceremonies at the Hall of Fame in upstate New York, since the All-Star Game in 2008 that feted the final season at old Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n

Phillies manager Don Mattingly relished the brief pregame mingle before the grand entrance, with many in the group contemporaries of his as a player in the 1980s and 1990s and a few others in Jones and Kent he was able to coach with the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely good to see the boys,\u201d Mattingly said.<\/p>\n

No place evokes baseball and family nostalgia like the Field of Dreams<\/p>\n

Before the game, Buxton played catch with his 12-year-old son on the nearby movie site that remains open to the public for no cost on non-event days. Twins manager Derek Shelton did the same with his 78-year-old father, a former educator who coached him on his high school baseball team. Shelton later complained that his arm was in weaker shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get old enough that an experience like that is not emotional to be able to do something with your father,\u201d Shelton said.<\/p>\n

Mattingly, whose son just happens to be the club\u2019s general manager, found himself harkening back to Indiana childhood ballgames with his brothers upon arrival on the team bus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis place reminds me of when I was a kid,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cYou\u2019d go down a dirt road, and all of sudden you\u2019d see a cornfield and then there\u2019d be a field there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both teams wore throwback uniforms \u2014 the Twins in home threads from their first season in 1961 and the Phillies in road jerseys circa 1940 \u2014 in step with the hand-operated scoreboard in right field. <\/p>\n

The permanent ballpark built for all kinds of events \u2014 including the opportunity to host MLB games on a recurring basis \u2014 also has plenty of amenities with the video board in left field, a state-of-the-art sound system and, of course, indoor plumbing. <\/p>\n

The feel of the farm was just as strong as the buzz of the ballpark, with natural sponsor John Deere pledging $100,000 per home run hit to hunger-relief organization Feeding America.<\/p>\n

The special environment didn\u2019t erase the circumstance of the stretch run of the regular season, though, with both the Twins and Phillies in the thick of their respective wild-card races.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not in Minnesota for three days,\u201d Phillies star Bryce Harper said, \u201cbut we\u2019re still playing the Twins three times and we\u2019ve still got to win some games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in defeat, the Twins enjoyed taking part in something bigger than simply the 123rd game on their schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you grow in this game and get older and play more games, the shine of being in the big leagues and walking out on a big league field starts to wear off,\u201d catcher Ryan Jeffers said. \u201cMoments like this kind of bring that excitement and that energy and the goosebumps similar to your debut day.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DYERSVILLE, Iowa (AP) \u2014 Major League Baseball came back to the Field of Dreams carrying a big piece…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":999536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[50269,214073,591,400319,52584,24336,52585,36297,161620,400317,51,28966,7776,227322,200716,234474,374303,400321,76648,8321,50277,103249,3663,1287,1266,1822,3669,50,5217,2830,2083,400318,171020,400322,62,64682,69678,400320,92087,52,245039],"class_list":["post-999535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-andre-dawson","tag-andruw-jones","tag-baseball","tag-bert-blyleven","tag-billy-wagner","tag-bryce-harper","tag-c-c-sabathia","tag-derek-shelton","tag-don-mattingly","tag-ferguson-jenkins","tag-headlines","tag-ia-state-wire","tag-iowa","tag-james-earl-jones","tag-jeff-kent","tag-jim-kaat","tag-jim-thome","tag-joe-mauer","tag-kevin-costner","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-lee-smith","tag-mike-schmidt","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-mn-state-wire","tag-news","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-ray-kinsella","tag-ryan-jeffers","tag-scott-rolen","tag-sports","tag-steve-carlton","tag-taj-bradley","tag-terence-mann","tag-tony-la-russa","tag-top-stories","tag-trevor-hoffman"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/999536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}