The Little League and Field of Dreams jewel games
Both of these are already established, and there’s no legitimate reason to dramatically alter either one. The Little League game is played on a field in Williamsport, Pa., in conjunction with the annual Little League World Series. It features rotating teams, although it would be geographic sense to institutionalize a half dozen teams on a rotating basis as “host clubs.” The obvious candidates are the Pirates, Phillies, Orioles, Guardians, Yankees and Mets.
The first two playing of the Field of Dreams game have been scheduled for August for aesthetic reasons. After all, that’s when the corn is at its highest and greenest. Moving it to early September is a concession to the attractiveness of reserving July for a jewel game in conjunction with Hall of Fame celebrations.
In that vein, though, September still works. Granted, the stalks will be browner … but corn harvest in Iowa doesn’t really get underway until mid-September, so an early September return to Dyersville ought to work out nicely from a visual as well as a cultural standpoint.
As with Williamsport, it makes the most sense to rotate host duties at Dyersville among a half-dozen or so geographically positioned teams with at least some rooting base in the region. The obvious candidates, beyond the Cubs and White Sox, are the St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins. Note: If the Brewers are designated as annual hosts for a League of Their Own game, then they drop out of this group.
Package the whole six-event jewel game rubric together and you have a recurring annual celebration of the shared heritage of baseball and America. From a public relations standpoint, there is nothing that MLB execs ought to want more than that, and there is also nothing that would be a greater benefit to the game.