MLB comes back to Iowa on Thursday night, as the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins square off in the latest edition of the Field of Dreams Game. Assuming the weather cooperates, this is one of the very best dates on baseball's calendar, some of the biggest stars in the sport running around in the corn and reminding everybody just what we love so much about our national pastime. But for all the reasons to be excited about playing a ballgame in heaven, it does come with at least some drawbacks.
In the year 2026, every Major League park comes with all sorts of technological bells and whistles. But it turns out that not all of them are so easy to transport into the middle of farm country. Which is why, for one night only, MLB will be saying goodbye to roboumps — and opening itself up to a world of potential controversy.
Why is there no ABS challenge system for Field of Dreams Game?
That's right: MLB's Automated Ball-Strike system will not be in use in Dyersville on Thursday night, meaning that neither the Phillies nor the Twins will be able to challenge any calls made by the home-plate umpire. Granted, this won't be the first game to go without ABS in its inaugural season; it was also absent from the Mexico City Series between the Padres and Diamondbacks, as Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú Béisbol had not been outfitted with the required technology.
The Field of Dreams Game will be dealing with much the same problem. MLB and the powers-that-be in Iowa have spent the years since the last installment in 2022 putting the finishing touches on a sparkling, 8,000-seat field in Dyersville, right next to the site on which the movie was filmed. But that construction began before anyone knew that ABS would be brought to the Majors, and so it wasn't built with the system in mind. (As you can imagine, the ABS system requires all sorts of cameras and machinery to operate reliably, so it's not as simple as making a fix on the fly.)
On the one hand, it's all too easy to imagine a late-game scenario in which a questionable ball/strike call is made and fans are crying for a challenge — only to discover that's not an option. You never want a game decided, or potentially decided, by a missed call.
On the other ... isn't there something at least a little poetic about the Field of Dreams Game — a return to baseball's roots, and what it's meant to America for over a century — also returning to a time before ABS technology was in place? Its maiden voyage at the big-league level has undoubtedly been a success; the time suck isn't significant, and it's nice ot be able to correct truly egregious mistakes. But it still feels a little bit wrong, the sort of thing that belongs in other sports but not in baseball. It'll be nice to remember what that was like at least once, even if it gets some interested parties angry.
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