We’ll see the Chicago Cubs take on the Cincinnati Reds in 2022’s Field of Dreams game, as the popular event returns to the Dyersville, IA farm and film set in a return engagement.
The specifics of the game have not officially been announced, though Bob Nightengale of USA Today was the first to pass along the teams involved and a date of Aug. 11, 2022, and there’s also talk about an MiLB game played as part of the mix. At a press conference before the 2021 event, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed there would be a return engagement, with the likelihood the Cubs would be involved. At the same press conference Manfred expressed doubt that the game would return as an annual event, but that we were likely to see pop-up games at other sites along similar lines of the 2021 Field of Games game and the 2016 Fort Bragg game. The 2021 game attracted some 5.9 million viewers to the Fox network broadcast — the most-watched regular-season baseball game on the network in 16 years — and generated tons of press coverage. (Interestingly, a TV series based on Field of Dreams is in the works, but as an NBC project, not a Fox project.) It was a success on every level.
And the game certainly was a unique experience: we laid out the planning for the 2021 game from its 2015 roots to the 2020 ballpark construction and deconstruction as well as the 2021 reconstruction. The only permanent installations at the Fields of Dream site are the playing field, a well-supplied irrigation system and concrete pads for the dugouts. Everything else at the site–tents used for clubhouses and administrative spaces, trailers and shipping containers for office space, and temporary seating installed for fans–will be removed from the site in the next two weeks and then reinstalled for the 2022 game.
RELATED STORIES: In the end, all the world’s an Iowa movie set; Building the ultimate Field of Dreams; Field of Dreams ballpark takes shape in Iowa; Field of Dreams ticket lottery limited to Iowa residents; New date set for 2021 Field of Dreams game; With game postponed, Field of Dreams lies fallow; 2020 Field of Dreams game canceled; Field of Dreams game still tentatively on, with White Sox facing Cards; Field of Dreams construction work continues