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The Field of Dreams Game – Part 6: A Series of Corny Redemptions

Writer's picture: Ken SmollerKen Smoller

Updated: Apr 21, 2023


The Field of Dreams game between the White Sox and Yankees electrified baseball fans with both the amazing visuals and the epic instant classic game itself. Tim Anderson got to show the baseball world what Chicago fans already knew, he is a superstar in the making with a flare for the dramatic. Beyond the normal metrics for judging an event’s success, the Field of Dreams provided a redemption touchstone on a few levels. Also, while not the redemption trigger per se, the Field of Dreams helped bookend certain key aspects of White Sox and baseball lore.



Tim Anderson electrified both the glowing Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa and the entire baseball world with his Stalkoff home run.


As mentioned earlier, the White Sox have barely sniffed the World Series since eight of their integral players received a lifetime banishment for throwing (allegedly) the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. After 88 years of futility (numerologists could have a field day with the 8 Men Out/88 year nexus), a diverse team of aging stars and role players finally broke the Shoeless Joe playoff curse at, of all places, Fenway Park on October 7, 2005.


On that night in Boston, the White Sox beat the Red Sox in a first round playoff American League Division Series by a count of 3 games to 0 in the same ballpark featured in the Costner/James Earl Jones “Go the Distance” scene in the Field of Dreams. It was the White Sox very first playoff series victory of any kind since 1917. After the 2005 White Sox players sprayed their loyal road fans with champagne near the Fenway Park visitor’s dugout, my Red Sox-loving girlfriend (now my wife) graciously took me to continue my celebration at an Uno Chicago Grill on Brookline Avenue just down the street from Fenway. Leaving aside the fact that the Uno’s franchise chain is a weak imitation of the original Pizzeria Uno in Chicago, this branch Uno’s happened to be on the ground floor of the Hotel Buckminster. The Buckminster is THE same hotel that members of the Black Sox first met with New York gamblers late in the 1919 season and hatched the plan to throw the upcoming World Series.


While both the hotel and restaurant have recently closed as part of a redevelopment, the building still stands and houses the ghosts of the 1919 Black Sox. I attempted to appease those ghosts by drinking a Chicago-brewed Goose Island beer and eating suboptimal deep dish Chicago pizza that October night.