DYERSVILLE, Iowa — They wandered in from the corn, paused for a beat at the right field warning track, gazed around, and kept walking. Soon, 26 — 26! — Hall of Famers joined them on the field.
But that was the performative, made-for-Netflix part.
If only everybody could have seen them hours earlier, before the cameras rolled here Thursday night. A few hundred feet from a refurbished 8,000-seat stadium, the Phillies stood on the original Field of Dreams, the one that sits alongside the white farmhouse and tilted red barn and was the set of the 1989 Oscar-nominated film that brings people to this little Iowa town in the first place.
Andrew Painter and his parents walked the outfield made famous by Costner and Liotta. Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott took pictures in front of the house. Brandon Marsh maneuvered between the cornstalks. Don Mattingly had a catch with his 11-year-old son, Louie, near his older son, Preston, the Phillies’ general manager.
And for a few minutes, nobody talked about back-to-back losses this week in St. Louis. Or five losses in eight games. Or a 10-15 record since the All-Star break. Or a playoff spot that is slipping through their fingers.
For a few minutes, they all smiled. They … relaxed.
“I don’t think our guys have a problem relaxing, honestly,” Mattingly said. “But I do think guys like coming to these kind of games. They do break up the monotony. You know, this is a game you don’t really forget.”
But it was a game nonetheless. And before the end of a long day that started in St. Louis and ended on a plane to Minneapolis, Kyle Schwarber homered twice — including a leadoff shot into the corn, as if it had been ordered up by a Hollywood script — in an easy, breezy 7-1 victory over the Twins.
Schwarber played a prominent role in the pregame script. He took the microphone and joined Twins star Byron Buxton in announcing the arrival of the Hall of Famers, who also entered through the corn.
Then, Schwarber stood alongside Mattingly on the first-base line and kibitzed about the legends in their midst.
“Molly’s out there and I’m like, ‘This guy could really hit,’” Mattingly said of Paul Molitor. “And he knew Hawk [Andre Dawson] from Chicago a little bit, and I knew him from Miami. A lot of the guys, I played with. So, it was interesting to be able to talk about that.”
Schwarber went further, calling it “once in a lifetime.” And once the unscripted part of the event began, he hit Twins starter Taj Bradley’s third pitch out to right field.
While Schwarber looked authentic in the Phillies’ gray, red, and navy 1939 throwback uniforms, Aaron Nola threw it back to a time when the Phillies relied on him atop their rotation. He’s more of a supporting actor now, but the Phillies still need him down the stretch.
And in five solid innings, Nola gave up only a homer to Luke Keaschall. Don’t look now, but he has a 2.91 ERA in his last four starts and has allowed three runs or less in seven of his last eight.
Schwarber made it 5-1 in the fourth inning with a two-run shot off a leaping Keaschall’s glove in right field. Marsh homered in the seventh.
It all came at the end of a 14-game stretch without a day off. There were times when the bullpen was fried and the lineup didn’t produce runs. The Phillies woke up Thursday in a tie with the Diamondbacks for the last National League wild-card spot.
There was a sense, then, that this Iowa excursion — a “pop-in and pop-out,” as Mattingly called it — couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Actually, it was quite the opposite.
“Maybe the boys needed a little shock like today,” Marsh said. “Really didn’t get to get our routines in. Not complaining, but it was just a quick day, a lot of stuff going on. Maybe the boys needed it.
“We haven’t been playing, like J.T. [Realmuto] said, our brand of baseball that we talk about here. Hopefully today, that’s a little spark for us to turn it on for this push.”
Indeed, sometimes the best way to break out of a rut is to change the routine of a six-month grind. So, the Phillies flew into nearby Dubuque a few hours before the game and took a bus to the Field of Dreams site. They took it all in. The entire front office met them here, too, with owner John Middleton sitting behind home plate.
Even Nola walked around the field with Zack Wheeler and pitching coach Caleb Cotham before studying the scouting report on the Twins.
“We were talking about just how the experience was from when we got here, having the opportunity to go over to the movie set, walk around, see it,” Schwarber said. “We all watched the movie as kids growing up, so it’s really cool to be able to see exactly where it was.
“It’s a unique thing to do, and it’s something that you’re going to bring up to your kids. I’m going to watch that movie together with my kids one day, and to be able to say, ‘Hey, dad got to play there,’ or, ‘Dad got to, you see that house out there in this movie,’ it’ll be really cool.”
Wait until Schwarber tells his kids about hitting two homers in front of more than two dozen Hall of Famers.
And maybe even giving the skidding Phillies a jump-start.
“It’s kind of a little pinch, right? A little reality pinch,” Schwarber said. “Overall, just an unbelievable experience. And obviously we’re happy we walked away with a win.”
