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It should be one of many swings baseball takes at creating moments that intentionally spotlight games and players and the sport.īaseball fandom isn’t a monoculture, and MLB’s efforts to showcase the game should be as varied as the people who love it.

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This is where striving for inclusivity takes real work.Īrguments about whether “Field of Dreams” was the best vessel for an eyeball-drawing baseball event on national TV are both beside the point and the whole problem encapsulated: This shouldn’t feel like such a rare occasion.

It also isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK - no single game or aesthetic could be. It spoke to a vast audience and floated baseball to the top of the sports world’s consciousness for an evening, which is unabashedly good.

Together.īringing the mystical aura of “Field of Dreams” to life did that, in its own way. More people, across more walks of life, watching the same game at the same time. Inclusive is the way to actually build up the cultural capital of the sport. “Exclusive” has been bludgeoning would-be baseball fans over the head for years.

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Hell, it plopped this meticulously planned game in Iowa, a state where it has not figured out how to navigate TV contracts in such a way that keeps residents from being blacked out of seven different teams’ games on MLB.TV on any given night. It teases and then announces exclusive partnerships with cryptocurrency companies that affect approximately zero people’s sports fandom decisions. It puts exclusive games on YouTube, undoubtedly for money. Even in its apparent attempts at outreach, MLB often comes across as craven or simply out of touch. Skepticism about how this would play out was warranted. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images) MLB must build on Field of Dreams Game formula White Sox star Tim Anderson grins as he rounds the bases after walloping a walk-off homer to beat the Yankees in the Field of Dreams Game.

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It’s just often hidden on regional TV while baseball’s only moments in the national consciousness are devoted to outdated hand-wringing, ill-advised tweaks to the sport, or worse.Ī dynamic Black star who wouldn’t have been allowed to wear the uniforms that inspired the beautiful White Sox throwbacks, Anderson doesn’t need to connect to the movie that inspired this event. He also doesn’t lack that cool factor at all. Here’s the thing: Anderson is completely correct. “At that point, you’ve just got guys throwing and catching and hitting. “They don’t want you to show any emotions, so of course nobody is going to watch that,” he said. He told the Wall Street Journal this week that he hasn’t seen “Field of Dreams” and doesn’t plan to, and then lamented the cultural cool factor that baseball lacks compared to basketball and football.

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Update your settings here to see it.Īnderson exemplifies so much of why this game stands as an important milestone in MLB’s approach as by far the most significant steward and promoter of the sport it increasingly attempts to own. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Then the Yankees mounted a gargantuan ninth-inning comeback on homers by Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. First, there was joyous dinger-mashing from red hot, recently returned White Sox slugger Eloy Jimenez. This was a recently unheard of weeknight regular season game on Fox - the actual MLB product, marketed to a huge audience, with only aesthetic differences.Īs it happened, the players turned this game into an absolute classic. Regardless of what happens between the lines, there are immense benefits to shining a light on a single baseball game, on national over-the-air television, with no major sports competition beyond preseason football.

White Sox, Yankees play instant classic in national spotlight From the outset, this game felt like a moment of relief from that malady - an almost foreign-feeling exercise in glorification. Under the leadership of commissioner Rob Manfred, MLB has suffered frequent, debilitating bouts of self-flagellation. But it achieved the desired effect: It had people - a lot of them - watching and talking about a regular season game on a Thursday night in August.įor a sport so often caricatured over its obsession with the past, baseball has spent the better part of a decade fretting over the future at the expense of the present. It was intoxicating and sugary and, yes, a bit corny. Kevin Costner, the movie’s star, was there and seemingly a bit awed as he emerged first from the stalks, then turned and watched the players’ made-for-TV entrance.

Fiels of dreams