26 Hall of Fame members emerge from corn at Field of Dreams - ESPN

DYERSVILLE, Iowa — Major League Baseball came back to the Field of Dreams carrying a big piece of Cooperstown.

The pregame pomp before the Minnesota Twins played the Philadelphia Phillies — adjacent to the farmland where the 1989 fantasy was filmed — featured 26 members of the Hall of Fame emerging from the outfield corn, just as the ghost players did in the movie.

With some of the loudest cheers saved for former Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt and former Twins catcher Joe Mauer, the capacity crowd of about 8,000 at the newly constructed ballpark in northeast Iowa soaked up the surreal atmosphere as the retired stars strolled into the infield for proper introductions.

Fireworks were launched from the cornfield during the national anthem, and Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber followed with his own big bang — a homer to right on Twins starter Taj Bradley's third pitch of the game.

Kevin Costner, after stealing the show at the inaugural 2021 event, which was played on the same footprint at a temporary setup that also hosted the 2022 game, did not appear. However, Cosner, who played restless farmer Ray Kinsella in the film, narrated the pregame video that helped pump some old-guard nostalgia through the broadcast on Netflix.

Both teams emerged from the corn together to take their places along the lines similar to opening day, and Twins All-Star Byron Buxton, who came off the injured list earlier in the day, took the microphone to evoke a line from James Earl Jones, who played the author Terence Mann in the movie.

«The one constant through all the years has been baseball,» Buxton said before Schwarber followed with a brief script on an idyllic late-summer night after heavy rain moved through the area earlier in the day.

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