Opening Day in Field of Dreams – Bananas x Pickles
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Riding the wave of increased interest in baseball, MLB hopes to bring the unbridled enthusiasm stateside to the heartland. Although fan interest in WBC countries reached nearly 50% of all households, the games were only played in major cities with large international fan bases (Miami and Phoenix area), overlooking much of the broader US population. Fans from the plains and “flyover states” complained loudly on Facebook and Truth social media sites of the oversight by MLB who seemed to focus more on overseas fans than domestic fans.
To remedy this situation, MLB has announced that MLB opening day will take place on Thursday, March 29, at Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. This came as a surprise to baseball die-hards as MLB had previously cancelled future games at the nostalgic field due to construction.
“The Savannah Bananas will take on the Portland Pickles at the Field of Dreams field to mark the start of 2023 Professional Baseball season,” stated MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. “Due to the heavy travel schedules of the 30 MLB teams, we asked the most innovative franchises in all of professional baseball to participate in this historic event. Both teams have graciously agreed to play in this exhibition game which will be transmitted only over AM radio, just like the old days.”
When asked about the lack of broadcasting of the game, MLB Chief Marketing Officer Karin Timpone stated, “we have heard a backlash over the use of technology creeping into America’s game so we decided to go old school with no TV, pitch clocks and robo-umps. These technologies are detractors from the real appeal of the game which is seeing the imperfections of a human umpire in action combined with a middle aged manager having a meltdown over a bad call.”
Both teams are traveling by bus to Dyersville from their respective cities to save on MLB expenses. To defray the costs of travel, both teams have indicated that they will be bringing locally produced agricultural seed and compost of their respective regions to sell at the local farmers market, which is locally referred to as the market. Rose seeds and tobacco compost are expected to be the hot selling items since nothing has grown in their area since agro giants ADM, Monsanto and Cargill had implemented their monocrop ideology turning the land into a non-arable dust bowl. To further evangelize the soil regeneration movement, Woody Harrelson, narrator of the documentary film Kiss the Ground is set to throw out the first pitch.