MLB cancels Field of Dreams game scheduled next week in Dyersville

CEDAR RAPIDS — They have built it, but no one will come. At least not this summer.

Major League Baseball has canceled next week's game between the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals at a new one-off baseball stadium MLB constructed adjacent to the 'Field of Dreams' movie site in rural Dyersville.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was the first to report the news. The Associated Press later confirmed it.

Rosenthal reported the cancellation of the Aug. 13 game, the first MLB regular-season game in Iowa history, and said it believed it had to do with 'logistics' more than a coronavirus outbreak on the Cardinals team. As of Monday afternoon, St. Louis had seven players and six other staff members test positive for the potentially deadly virus.

The Cardinals have not played a game since last week Wednesday at Minnesota against the Twins and aren't expected to play again until at least this weekend. A four-game series against the Detroit Tigers has been postponed.

The White Sox originally were to take on the New York Yankees but those plans were changed by COVID-19, and when MLB announced a truncated 60-game regular-season based on geography. The new Dyersville stadium is said to seat 8,000 fans and cost more than $6 million to construct.

The AP has reported a regular-season game will be played next season at the Dyersville site instead. The White Sox are expected to be one of the teams involved.

'These are uncharted waters for everybody,' Roman Weinberg said in a June story in The Gazette. Weinberg is director of operations for Go The Distance, LLC, which owns the 'Field Of Dreams' site.

'We're all in this together, and we understand that. We understand the best choice for Major League Baseball in 2020 comes first.'

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