This Thursday Major League Baseball will once again shine the spotlight on a baseball diamond borne of a corn field in Dyersville, IA, with its second annual Field of Dreams game. As a sucker for most things baseball, all things Field of Dreams, and of corn in general, I will – no doubt – check out some of the action.
I doubt the going-nowhere-fast Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds will be able to duplicate the excitement of last year’s inaugural game between a pair of then-pennant contenders in the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees (see the highlights here), but who cares. As our realtor friends might tell us, it’s all about the location, right?
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that two teams due to play each other 19 times this year will take one of those contests and play it in a state where no MLB team is within 180 miles.
In my pre-blog days I penned a rant on Facebook about MLB needing to do more of this. Why do I, a Tigers’ fan, need to be subjected to 10 games in town against the Guardians? Or the Twins? Conversely, do the fans in Kansas City or Chicago really want the Tigers in town 10 times?
To its credit, MLB and the MLB Players Association took a step in the right direction with the labor agreement it reached back in March. The so-called balanced schedule that will debut in 2023 will see divisional rivals play each other only 14 times each (7 home/7 away), six times each against other league opponents (3 home/3 away), and a three times each against the 14 opposite league opponents and four times against the “natural” rival (2 home/2 away, presumably). The seasons of 19 divisional games are, mercifully, long gone. As our the lengthy stretches between visits by teams from the opposite league.
We learned last week that the London Series is returning in 2023 (Cubs vs. Cardinals, June 24-25). There will also be regular-season games played in London during the 2024 and 2026 season. Mexico City will host regular-season baseball in each of the next four seasons, there will be games played in Asia/Japan in 2024 and 2025, Paris in 2025, and San Juan in 2025 and 2026. Again, I applaud the MLB/MLBPA’s desire to showcase the sport in non-traditional markets, but …
… why the continued neglect of non-traditional markets in the United States and Canada?
I’m delighted the MLB-Little League Classic is returning to Williamsport, PA, on August 21 (Baltimore vs. Boston) but Pennsylvania has two MLB teams that play 81 home games apiece.
How about getting some MLB regular-season action in locations that don’t have multiple bites at the apple of attending live MLB action, annually? Places like Montreal, Portland, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Calgary, Mobile, Durham, Honolulu, Winnipeg, or even Anchorage? If the engineers are able to make a MLB-quality diamond/field in Dyersville and Williamsport, one can presume something similar can be accomplished in these other locations. Red Sox-Blue Jays in Montreal? Mariners-A’s in Portland? Reds-Cubs in Indianapolis? How about the Rockies playing a pair of games in the Canadian Rockies? Or the Twins taking a pair of divisional games north to Manitoba? Maybe the Rays meeting the Orioles in Durham? Or the Braves-Marlins in Mobile?
Bottom line, there are plenty of Dyersvilles and Williamsports out there. Let’s get Major League Baseball in these spots, expose fans of all ages to the game, and grow it domestically as well as internationally.