Baseball leaders have ruined the game. Can’t they just leave the Field of Dreams alone?

It’s Fourth of July weekend, time when Major League Baseball should be getting serious. Yet here we are, still stuck on the starting line. It’s hard to believe the games are really going to start to happen.

While we’re waiting for any games to happen, the big news of the week was the the St. Louis Cardinals were chosen to play at the Field of Dreams, replacing the New York Yankees. Sort of. It’s not really on the field you saw in the movie, the game is actually supposed to be played in an 8,000-seat ballpark just on the other side of the corn that forms the left-center field wall.

I love the Field of Dreams. I really do. I have had the pleasure of playing several games on that special field which, unlike a lot of movie sets, holds all of the magic in real life that it portrays on the big screen. When I stood at the plate I felt like a little kid, struggling to concentrate on the pitcher’s offerings, instead wanting to soak in all the atmosphere. The corn, the farm house, the rustic bleachers. I couldn’t take my eyes off of any of it.

That being said, why is Major League Baseball worried about dragging the Cardinals from St. Louis and the White Sox from Chicago to meet up for a one-time game when every excursion risks ruining the season by exposing players to COVID-19? It seems ridiculous to build a brand new stadium for one game that has 8,000 seats when fans aren’t allowed to attend games because of safety reasons. This really isn’t a game at the Field of Dreams at all. It’s a silly publicity stunt that ought to be saved for more normal times. There are going to be a few bumper shots of the original field and maybe an introduction from there before the game. After that, it won’t make any difference if the game is played in Iowa or Idaho. It’s going to be an unfamiliar field that has absolutely no history of its own.

Major League Baseball would be better off keeping players at home as much as possible and putting off the Field of Dreams game to a time when we’re more free to move about and people could actually show up.

Sadly, the Field of Dreams as we know it is an endangered species. One of the reasons it’s so charming is that it remote, well off the beaten path. But operators are trying to increase its money generating abilities for years by building spin-off fields around it. While it’s supposed to be for a one-off game, I fear that the MLB facility will become the foundation for a neighboring ballpark. When you’re there now, beyond the field all you see is rolling hills and corn. Seeing acres of asphalt and light poles or the inevitable strip mall is going to kill the mystique to say the least.

We’ve already had to live with the designated hitter, a badly diminished schedule, bizarre and contrived pitching rules and other damaging changes to the game. Can’t they leave the Field of Dreams alone so we can at least have one thing to remember as it used to be. It’s ironic, with all the bad things going on with the game, that professional baseball plans to commemorate the season at the place where James Earl Jones’ character made his moving speech about how even though everything around us in America has changed, our game is the one thing that always stays the same.

The powers that be ought to worry a little bit less about trying to “improve” baseball and spend a little time watching that movie to remind them about all that was great about the game.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.