Field of Dreams site in Iowa is bought by group led by Hall of Fame slugger Frank Thomas one month after hosting its first MLB game
- A group led by Frank Thomas has bought controlling interest in Go the Distance Baseball’s stake of All-Star Ballpark Heaven and the Field of Dreams Movie Site
- MLB built a ballpark adjacent to the movie site, and the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox played the first big league game there last month
- The park will host a second game next year between the Cubs and Reds
Kevin Costner’s film Field of Dreams added another Hall of Famer this week as group led by former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas purchased the Iowa film set where fictionalized baseball legends captivated audiences back in 1989.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement involves Thomas’s This is Heaven LLC acquiring Go the Distance Baseball’s stake of All-Star Ballpark Heaven and the Field of Dreams Movie Site. Both company names reference quotes from the field.
This is Heaven is Thomas’s partnership with Chicago real estate developer Rick Heidner, and Go the Distance Baseball was owned by the Denise M. Stillman Trust.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement involves Thomas’s This is Heaven LLC acquiring Go the Distance Baseball’s stake of All-Star Ballpark Heaven and the Field of Dreams Movie Site. Both company names are references to different quotes from the field
Kevin Costner’s film Field of Dreams added another Hall of Famer this week as group led by former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas (pictured) purchased the Iowa film set where fictionalized baseball legends captivated audiences back in 1989
Movie actor Kevin Costner leaves the field before a game between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees at Field of Dreams
Thomas will be chief executive officer and former Chicago White Sox general manager Dan Evans will be chief operating officer.
Denise M. Stillman headed a group that bought the field, the location of the 1989 movie ‘Field of Dreams,’ and the adjacent Lansing family farm in 2011. The site of about 190 acres includes a working cornfield. She died in 2018.
Major League Baseball built a ballpark adjacent to the movie site, and the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox played the first big league game there on August 12, with Chicago winning a thriller, 9-8. The Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds are scheduled to play there next on August 11, 2022.
Thomas, a five-time All-Star and two-time AL MVP nicknamed the Big Hurt, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.
Kevin Costner holding Gaby Hoffmann in a scene from the film Field Of Dreams
The New York Yankees gather for the team photo before the game against the Chicago White Sox at Field of Dreams
This is not Thomas’s first foray into the movie industry. Although his face is never seen in the film, Thomas plays Yankees prospect Ricky Davis in the 1992 Tom Selleck movie, Mr. Baseball.
Fox Sports’ Field of Dreams broadcast in August proved to be the most-watched regular-season MLB game in 16 years, with nearly six million baseball fans tuning in to watch the New York Yankees take on the Chicago White Sox.
At the inaugural Field of Dreams game, just over 5.9 million viewers watched as the White Sox narrowly defeated the Yankees 9-8 at the iconic cornfield baseball diamond in Dyersville, Iowa.
The field, which was famously featured in the 1989 Academy Award nominated film Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones, will almost certainly host another MLB game after the blockbuster viewership.
Scorekeepers manually kept track of the game during the fifth inning of the MLB Field of Dreams Game between the White Sox and the Yankees in a cornfield in Dyerseville, Iowa
New York Yankees Gerrit Cole and teammates walk through the centerfield cornfield as he and teammates admire the 1989 movie set ballpark of the ‘Field of Dreams’
‘I think the reception that this event has received has been so positive that we will be back,’ Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.
‘I think it’s pretty clear we’re going to be back next year and we’ll have to talk about it after that. But it’s just been so successful that it’s hard not to take the opportunity to do it again.’
Fox News reports that viewership for the game spiked between 8.45 and 9pm ET to just over 6 million.
A Fox Sports spokesperson confirmed the game set a record for the most-viewed non-playoff game since a 2005 match-up between heated rivals the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees.
That game had 5,909,000 viewers.
Fox Sports’ public relations department revealed that the inaugural Field of Dreams game also happened to rank as the most-streamed regular season game in the network’s broadcasting history.
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