DYERSVILLE, Iowa — When John Stillman first visited the Field of Dreams site as a 9-year-old on a road trip with his father, Mike, there was little to the site beyond the original baseball field, farmhouse and a series of sheds.
Father and son had watched the movie, so why not take a detour on their trip back from watching the Chicago White Sox at Target Field? They played catch. They wandered the corn fields.
“It was one of those things,” John, now 26, said. “Of course, we’re going to stop and see it.”
A month later, they and Denise Stillman, John’s mother, were back in Iowa. This time, they were in the farmhouse with Don and Becky Lansing, the long-time owners of the surrounding farmland, to discuss buying the property. Denise won the Lansings over with a vision of building a youth baseball and softball complex on the site with the goal of becoming the Cooperstown of the Midwest, buying the property with a group of investors in 2012.
Every bit of Thursday night’s spectacle in Dyersville — MLB players emerging from the corn, families playing catch and taking photos on the original field from the movie, cars pouring into the sprawling grass lots — can be traced back to Denise’s belief in the site. She is the first person who suggested bringing MLB to the Field of Dreams, a concept she floated several years into her ownership of the land.
“That’d be a great idea, mom,” John recalled telling her as a teenager. “But kind of crazy.”
But that is what this site was built on, in the movie and in real life: on blind faith, on unwavering trust in the voice guiding you. Her inner voice was as sure as those whispering to Kevin Costner in “Field of Dreams.” So she invited MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to the site, meeting with him in the farmhouse in 2016, and remained in discussions with the league.
Denise Stillman met with commissioner Rob Manfred in 2016. Thursday marked the third Field of Dreams game featuring major leaguers. (Alex Trautwig / MLB via Getty Images)
Denise, however, did not live to see her dream realized. She died of liver cancer in 2018, a year before the league announced it would host a game at the site. Even after her diagnosis, Denise remained involved in the site’s development and trying to make the game a reality.
“She was here until the day she died,” John said. “Until she couldn’t.”
Now John, who attended Thursday’s game between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies, has been to all three iterations of his mother’s dream come to life. The first game in 2021, he said, was particularly special given the years that had preceded it — his mother’s death in 2018, the pandemic, the 2020 edition of the game getting pushed back a year — and his hometown White Sox walking it off against the New York Yankees.
“I joke (that) I think my mom had a little bit to do with that ending and that crazy ninth inning,” he said.
When visitors walk toward the original house, they can view a map of the entire property. Next to it is a plaque with Denise’s likeness on it and a few paragraphs detailing her involvement in creating the game.
She helped build it, and oh they have come – in 2021 and 2022, and on Thursday, bearing witness to an assembly of Hall of Famers, of the rustling corn, of fireworks, of countless games of catch.
Luis Arraez’s return to Iowa was a chance to catch up with friends from his time in the Twins organization. Getting three hits didn’t hurt, either. (Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)
The coldest summer Luis Arraez ever spent may have been his time with the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the Twins’ High-A affiliate (then Low-A). That is when he won his first batting title, which has been followed by perhaps more illustrious titles (twice in the National League, once in the American League).
Cedar Rapids is just over an hour from the Field of Dreams site in Dyersville. But Arraez went to the field for the first time on Thursday, joining a large contingent of Phillies and Twins players who wandered the movie site, snapped photos and took it all in before a 7-1 Phillies win that night.
“We’re living the dream,” Arraez said pregame Thursday. “Now, I need to go out there and play. And I just need to go out there and have fun.”
He did a bit more than that, going 3-for-5 in the game. It is all the Phillies could have hoped for after a poor start in his first week with the team, including a hitless stretch that reached 0-for-16. And it came against the Twins, the team that signed Arraez as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela. Beyond all the pageantry and exploring the film site, that is what Arraez said he enjoyed most about Thursday’s game: the chance to catch up with old friends.
Dyersville native Nick Offerman is one of the Ghost Players, who perform for visitors at the Field of Dreams site. (Charlotte Varnes / The Athletic)
Over several hours on Thursday, fans and players alike dotted the original site from the Field of Dreams film. Some took photos with the house, others with the corn, others had a catch in the outfield.
Spread among them were men in uniforms identical to the ghosts in the film, the old White Sox logo fixed on a pinstriped jersey. They played catch with families, took photos and chatted. Nick Offerman, 23, stood in the outfield and played catch with a group.
“To see this many people in your hometown to watch a professional game,” Offerman said, “in a town of 4,000 people — it’s pretty unreal.”
Offerman (who happens to share a name with the actor who starred in “Parks and Recreation”) is a Dyersville native whose father was one of the original eight Ghost Players. Founded in 1990, the group of local Iowans played games and performed scenes at the movie site.
As the original players got older, Offerman said they began to bring in younger performers. He has visited the site to watch his father since he was born, but officially joined the Ghost Players as a teenager. Thursday marked his second Field of Dreams game; he missed the 2021 edition while playing in the American Legion World Series in North Carolina.
Some of the first visitors Offerman saw on Thursday were Twins and Phillies players. Both teams got a chance to explore the site, where they took photos, stood on the mound, played catch, FaceTimed their families and chatted.
“They’re kind of shaking their heads and in disbelief about what this is and how special it is and how cool it is,” Offerman said. “There’s just an aura about this place everybody acknowledges when you get here.”
The Rowans endured a 15-hour travel day, but a special first Phillies game in Iowa made it all worthwhile. (Charlotte Varnes / The Athletic)
A stroller and a propped-up sign that read “Is this heaven? No… it’s my first Phillies game!” sat in the outfield of the movie site near the Ghost Players and families playing catch.
The stroller held two children under the age of 1, including Grace — who was eight weeks and one day old as of Thursday’s Field of Dreams game. She and her sister, Bri, were in attendance with parents Brian and Amber Rowan of Upper Makefield Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, making the trip to Iowa for the game.
Brian said he booked an Airbnb as soon as it was confirmed the Phillies would play in the Field of Dreams game, but knew he would make a final call on attending later. It wasn’t until the All-Star break that he convinced Amber it was feasible to travel to it with both of their young daughters.
“I wanted to take her to a game, like, last week,” Brian said of Grace. “I went to a game, but (I thought), ‘It would be a lot cooler if this was her first game.’ I can always tell her that for the rest of her life.”
The journey wasn’t without headaches. The Rowans ended up having a 15-hour travel day to the Midwest rather than a brief, non-stop flight thanks to a cancellation out of Philadelphia. But they made it to the Field of Dreams, arriving just before the gates opened. They fed their daughters and changed them in the grass lot, then spread out in the outfield. There Amber played catch for the first time and their daughters rested in matching corn onesies, sunlight slipping through the cornstalks and beaming onto the grass they stood on.
As the Rowans spoke, Phillies managing partner John Middleton walked across the outfield toward the corn.
“That’s John,” Amber said to Grace. “You haven’t met him yet.”
They waved to Middleton. He waved back and yelled, “Hey guys. How are you?” It is a moment that might not be possible at Citizens Bank Park, a sprawling ballpark fit for 44,000-plus. But in the cornfields of Iowa, the ancient farmhouse and new ballpark standing stall, the sky a crisp blue after a rain-filled morning — it felt as though anything might happen.
