The next showcase event on the MLB calendar is the Field of Dreams Game, set to be played in Dyersville, Iowa, on Thursday between the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins. The series, which debuted to much fanfare in 2021 with the Chicago White Sox beating the New York Yankees on a walk-off homer into the cornfields of Iowa, is back after a three-year hiatus.
The event, which is now set to be aired on Netflix, is a showcase game for the sport, as MLB has begun a tradition of staging games at non-traditional venues on a seemingly annual basis. The St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants played in Birmingham, Ala., in 2024 as a part of a tribute to the Negro Leagues, while the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds played in Nashville at Bristol Motor Speedway last season.
These experiments don't always end well, though. That game between Cincinnati and Atlanta turned into a disaster as rain wrecked the field after only a few batters, forcing the league to postpone the game and resume it the following day. Philadelphia and Minnesota are hoping the same fate doesn't befall them, but the forecast does not look promising with a 70 percent chance of rain in the cards for Thursday in Iowa.
What happens if the Field Of Dreams game is postponed?
Major League Baseball has built some flexibility into the schedule in the event that weather impacts some or all of Thursday's game. Both the Phillies and Twins have an off day on Friday, which Yahoo Sports is reporting will be the contingency date in the event the contest is washed out.
The league has indicated that both teams would remain in Iowa ahead of a makeup, and all tickets for the contest on Thursday would remain valid for Friday. A start time for a potential makeup isn't known yet, which could be interesting since Netflix has an exclusive window to broadcast the game on Thursday night that would be nearly impossible to duplicate on Friday.
The drawback for the Twins and Phillies is that they would lose a valuable off day before resuming what appear to be difficult schedules down the stretch. Both teams are off on the following Thursday, so they wouldn't be going too long without a break, but playing on Friday would force some awkward mid-series travel back to Minneapolis to resume the three-game set.
The series could be very important for both teams as the Phillies are in a three-way tie for the second and third Wild Card spots in the National League while Minnesota is 1.5 games back of the final American League playoff spot. That intensity ups the stakes for the Field of Dreams game, which both teams are surely hoping goes off without a hitch.
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