The Field of Dreams game was an incredible baseball battle between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees last week, and it was also a huge success for Fox and Major League Baseball. The game resulted in the best regular-season MLB viewership since 2005 and led to record MLB regular-season ad revenue for Fox. So it was as no-brainer for MLB to want to have another Field of Dreams game next year (at the very least), and now we know the teams it will feature.
Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago reports that the Cubs will play the Cincinnati Reds at the Field of Dreams site in Dyersville, Iowa on Aug. 11, 2022.
Major league sources confirmed the Reds will be the Cubs’ opponent in next year’s Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, one year after MLB staged the highly successful inaugural game that featured White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson’s walkoff homer into the corn to beat the Yankees.
The plan, which has a few legal details left to iron out, calls for the Cubs and Reds to play at the Field of Dreams site Thursday, Aug. 11, take Friday off, and then conclude the three-game series Saturday and Sunday in Cincinnati, sources said.
This matchup isn’t much of a surprise, and especially after Cubs manager David Ross basically — and hilariously — gave away that the Cubs are in next year’s game before the White Sox-Yankees game even happened.
“We’re in that next year, right?” Cubs manager David Ross said when asked about tomorrow’s “Field of Dreams” game in Iowa. (Pause.) “I hadn’t heard anything, either.”
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) August 11, 2021
Update: MLB confirmed this move on August 20:
https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/1428815613372387335?s=19
The Cubs are a complete dumpster fire of a team at the moment, taking an 11-game losing streak into play on Monday after having an eye–opening fire sale ahead of the July 30 trade deadline. But odds are they put together a much more acceptable on-field product next season, and they’re a hugely popular franchise that draws television ratings. The Iowa Cubs have also been Chicago’s longtime Triple-A affiliate, so it makes plenty of sense from the host location’s perspective.
The Reds — NL Central rivals with the Cubs — are currently a very good baseball team (taking a 64-55 record into Monday), and they also make plenty of sense for this game from a historical perspective. The Reds were baseball’s first-ever professional team, and they were also the team that beat the White Sox in the 1919 World Series, which eight members of the White Sox were accused of throwing (the Black Sox Scandal).
It would seem impossible for the 2022 edition of this game to top the 2021 version, but it should still be another fun and visually pleasing baseball event in Iowa.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.