Cubs, Reds will play in Field of Dreams game in 2022

Major League Baseball got some excellent publicity and a storybook walkoff ending with their Field of Dreams game between the White Sox and Yankees last week.

There had been rumors flying recently that there would be another such game played in 2022 and that the Cubs would be involved. Commissioner Rob Manfred pretty much said so, without mentioning the Cubs, in Iowa last week.

Now, per Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago, we have some details:

Major league sources confirmed the Reds will be the Cubs’ opponent in next year’s Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, one year after MLB staged the highly successful inaugural game that featured White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson’s walkoff homer into the corn to beat the Yankees.

The plan, which has a few legal details left to iron out, calls for the Cubs and Reds to play at the Field of Dreams site Thursday, Aug. 11, take Friday off, and then conclude the three-game series Saturday and Sunday in Cincinnati, sources said.

That would make sense, essentially playing on the same second Thursday in August as they did this year. This is important visually because you’d want to have the cornfields be at a certain height for the “out of the corn” effect. Next year it’ll be Cubs and Reds players coming out of the corn.

As noted in Wittenmyer’s article, the Reds will be the “home” team and bat last, as this was originally a three-game set at GABP from August 12-14, 2022, per next year’s Cubs schedule announced a couple of weeks ago.

The Cubs team that takes the field in Iowa next August will look quite different from the ballclub that’s setting loss records right now. Let’s hope that team will be closer to returning to contention. As for me? You can bet I’m going to make every effort to attend this game.