Major League Baseball’s second Field of Dreams game is tonight, and after last year’s outperformed even romantic expectations, the sequel’s challenge is clear: Keep the magic. Keep the charm. Don’t get stale, but somehow don’t get hokey.
A lot of MLB’s success with this game last year, at least through our eyes, came from its audacity with the programming. The Kevin Costner-led entrance was a risk. It would have been easy for it to feel too awkward or too saccharine. It was neither. The field itself could have turned out too overproduced compared to that of the movie’s, or too empty and wind-blown compared to what looks good on live TV. It turned out timeless instead, with the muted green of the twilit corn seeming, at least, to finally evoke in others the weighted love those of us familiar with those fields know from gray and gold summer evenings.
Timeless is the thing MLB is going for, and it’s a thing baseball can always go for. Baseball is one of the more timeless things we have. This is a cliché, of course, but sometimes clichés are treated as such, cast aside in the name of fresh angles. What was the last well-loved baseball movie? Moneyball, more than a decade old now? The movie loved on baseball, and did it well, but it wasn’t a perfect fit with the concept of timelessness. Behind that, you might have to go back to The Rookie, now twenty years post-release.
The thing that made last year’s Field of Dreams game so captivating was how smoothly it created a game of all ages. Clad in uniforms styled like those of the sport’s early days, on a field created in reverence to the early days, some of the bigger stars of today’s sport played the ageless game, surrounded by greats from all the decades in between. Will tonight live up to last year? It might be hard, with expectations set so high. But if there’s an air of timelessness, an air of mysticism, an air of love for a single game of baseball, set aside from standings and contracts and questions about various teams’ social media presences…if it can capture that, it’ll have been a good night.
You Can Do It Once or Twice
The NBA announced today that it’ll be retiring Bill Russell’s number (#6) leaguewide. Players currently wearing the number will be grandfathered in, but as they slowly retire, it’s gone.
I believe it’s just the third number retired leaguewide in a Big Four league, joining Jackie Robinson’s #42 in MLB and Wayne Gretzky’s #99 in the NHL. Pretty good company to keep.
Bill Russell certainly deserves this, and that’s what makes it so great in the first place. When you bestow an honor on someone that you have never bestowed on anybody else, it makes that person’s place in your eyes clear, and puts that on display for the world to see. Michael Jordan? Wilt Chamberlain? The insufferably two-timing Kevin Durant? Not Bill Russell. Nobody, to the NBA, is Bill Russell.
Now, then, the task is to keep it that way. This isn’t something you can do with any regularity. It’s a one-time awesome moment. Maybe, *maybe* twice. That’s what makes it so neat.
The First-Place Cleveland Guardians
The AL Central chase took another turn yesterday, as the Guardians beat the Tigers before the Dodgers beat the Twins, leaving Cleveland alone in first place at the end of the day. Even with the White Sox also losing, it’s not a commanding lead but it’s an exciting one for the underdogs, whose best five players by fWAR include Andrés Giménez, Steven Kwan, and Amed Rosario (in addition to the expected José Ramírez and Shane Bieber). Lot of best-case scenarios there, but that’s not necessarily luck. Cleveland’s long made its bones developing talent. It’s a very valuable thing to do well.
Elsewhere:
- The Rays fell to the Brewers in ten after a ninth-inning Rowdy Tellez home run tied the game. In other Tampa Bay news, Shane Baz might get back in time for the playoffs, but that’s if they make it, and that’s “might” not “should.” Meanwhile, top reliever J.P. Feyereisen (who has a 1.68 FIP and hasn’t allowed a single earned run in 24.1 innings of season-to-date work) is going to get an MRI on his shoulder. Not great for the Rays, who fell into a tie with the Orioles for the AL’s last playoff slot after Baltimore and Toronto were rained out. The Rays can do a lot with a little, but at some point the health catches up to teams.
- The Astros lost to the Rangers in a tenth-inning meltdown and the Mariners won in a trading of blows with the Yankees, pushing Seattle a game and a half clear of Baltimore and Tampa Bay while Houston and New York remain tied atop the American League. Astros circles seem unhappy with the team’s low usage of the pieces the team acquired at the deadline, but the team’s in fine shape, and with Lance McCullers Jr. returning this weekend and at least a chance existing of Michael Brantley returning (he’s getting a second opinion on his shoulder, we learned last night), they should be their typical formidable selves come October. For the Yankees’ part, they also remain formidable, though while Matt Carpenter won’t need foot surgery and might return this year, it’s a little hard to believe he’ll come back as hot as he left.
- The Red Sox lost again to Atlanta and now sit four games under .500 and five games back in the Wild Card race, occupying tenth place in the AL and wanting to be in at worst sixth. James Paxton’s getting going again after last year’s Tommy John surgery, but that’s very little, very late.
- The Mets continued to roll, and their lead over Atlanta still sits at seven games. That race isn’t over, but as we noted earlier this week, it’s suddenly very close to that. It’s a startling turn, and one thing the new playoff format hasn’t really changed is that teams can spend August and September sitting boringly in the one same playoff spot, as Atlanta sits in fourth place in the NL (with the Phillies also winning yesterday, that gap’s at three games). If there’s stratification in the standings, there isn’t much MLB can do to stop these last two months from being, in certain cases, exercises in preparing for October. Not to say that the NL playoff field is set (it’s not), but…it’s close (it’s close).
- The Cardinals beat the Rockies, bouncing back from a rough Tuesday as José Quintana turned in another quality start, having been staked to a 5-0 first inning lead. One game separates the Cards and Brewers, still. That might turn out to be the best regular season race.
- The Padres out-bopped the Giants, who, like the Red Sox, are in territory where the die is pretty well-cast. In the Red Sox’ case, the question seems to be when the Orioles will pass them in things like FanGraphs’s Playoff Odds. For the Giants, the question is when those Playoff Odds will hit 0.0%. It could be rather soon. (The Padres ended the day a game up on the Brewers and a game back of the Phillies, still occupying the NL’s final playoff slot.)
- The Cubs strung together another impressive rally yesterday afternoon to take the series against the Nationals, as after Nico Hoerner homered to make it a one-run game and Zach McKinstry struck out to make it one out in the seventh, Yan Gomes singled, P.J. Higgins walked, Nick Madrigal singled, Rafael Ortega hit a sac fly, and Ian Happ singled to flip the game to 4-2 in Chicago’s favor, a score that Rowan Wick made stand. It was a string of baserunners not unfamiliar in recent days, and it’s the kind of thing the team’s seemed to be angling for as they’ve recently prioritized high contact hitters like Madrigal (who also doubled in the game).
- Finally, the Tigers fired general manager Al Avila, who’d been with the franchise for 22 years and was promoted to the GM job in 2015, when Dave Dombrowski left for Boston. Does this reset the rebuild? Probably not, but it does presumably alter the approach, and it reflects discontent with where the rebuild is at. I wonder if the free agency aggression was an overplaying of Avila’s hand. This team was not as good on paper as it was on the field last year.
**
Viewing schedule for the day, second screen rotation in italics:
- 1:05 PM EDT: Miami @ Philadelphia, Cabrera vs. Gibson (MLB TV/ESPN+)
- 7:15 PM EDT: Cubs vs. Cincinnati – Dyersville, Smyly vs. Lodolo (FOX)
- 1:10 PM EDT: Cleveland @ Detroit, Plesac vs. Hill (MLB TV)
- 2:10 PM EDT: Chicago (AL) @ Kansas City, Cease vs. Greinke (MLB TV)
- 2:10 PM EDT: Texas @ Houston, Ragans vs. Valdez (MLB TV)
- 3:10 PM EDT: St. Louis @ Colorado, Hudson vs. Márquez (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Baltimore @ Boston, Kremer vs. Winckowski (MLB TV)
