Field of Dreams Game 2022: Discovering essence of Dyersville

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

DYERSVILLE, Iowa — On Wednesday afternoon, I walked into Ric's Barber Shop, looking for a haircut.

In eastern Iowa to cover the MLB Field of Dreams Game (7:15 p.m. ET Thursday on FOX and the FOX Sports app), I've actually been staying a half-hour away in the larger city of Dubuque. But I wanted to see what Dyersville — the town plastered across every piece of Field of Dreams merch I'd ever seen, the town forever etched into the minds of so many baseball fans — is really like.

And because I'm a groomsman in a wedding this weekend, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone: Check out the town and get my mop cleaned up. So I scheduled an appointment for noon and drove to 1st Avenue in Dyersville, the town's main business thoroughfare. I found a parking spot right out front and sauntered my way into Ric's.

The shop is a room frozen in time yet somehow extremely neat, well-ordered and without a speck of dust. A row of wooden waiting chairs presses up against the street-side windowsill, while the expected barber-shop stack of unread magazines and old editions of the local news lie dormant and lonely atop an end table.

The walls are dotted with photographs rich in meaning, shots of quintessential Iowa farmland interspersed with school pictures of grandchildren living thousands of miles away. Two ticket stubs from an August 1963 White Sox-Yankees game are displayed proudly on the right-side wall. At least half the items and trinkets and tools in that room are older than I am.

In the middle of it all, a lone barber's chair. 

Never in my years of big-city living had I ever seen a barber shop with just one barber's chair. I've had my hair cut inside a converted bus. I've gotten trimmed by a stranger in my living room. I had a teammate in college who'd clean you up for a Hamilton, but a single chair? I'd never even considered a single chair.

Behind that centerpiece stood a serene, hard-working soul who has been cutting hair in that exact spot for more than four decades. The man himself, the owner and operator of Ric's Barber Shop: Ric Willenborg.

"Jake, I assume?" he said with a smile, welcoming me in. Dressed in a loose-fitting golf shirt and khaki slacks, Willenborg was finishing up another person's cut and invited me to take a seat by the window. And as it so often goes, the three of us got to talking. 

I explained that I lived in another small town named New York City, and I was in town for the Field of Dreams festivities. Ric, in turn, told me about his beloved shop and how his wife, to whom he has been married for 51 years, is the sportswriter for the local paper.

Eventually, after a few minutes, Ric finished trimming the local and gestured for me to climb the throne. There was only one problem. 

You see, being a bumbling idiot, I brought neither cash nor a debit card with me to Iowa. And believe it or not, a barber shop run by a gent in his 70s located in a town of 4,000 people does not take credit or Venmo or Apple Pay.

"Ric, I've got to head out, man," I explained. "I can't have you cut my hair and not pay you. I'll just go somewhere that takes credit."

"It's all right. It's fine," he said while handing me a business card with his name, address and a description that reads: "Haircuts - Shaves - Philosophy - Socializing."

"I open every day at 7 a.m. Just come back tomorrow with cash or mail me a check when you get home to New York." 

I shook his hand and hopped into the chair. (For the record, I went back and paid him.)

*** *** ***

On Thursday evening, about four-and-a-half miles directly east of Ric's Barber Shop, the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs will square off in the second annual MLB Field of Dreams Game. The inaugural edition last season between the White Sox and Yankees was an instant classic, a saga for the ages, appropriately capped by a Tim Anderson walk-off dispatched through the moonlit Midwestern night into an endless ocean of corn.

That seesaw of a game — one that featured two eventual playoff teams stacked with household names such as Anderson, Judge and Stanton — didn't require a special setting to compel. A one-run, walk-off barn-burner between heavyweights is worth a watch whether it's played in Chicago, The Bronx, Iowa or anywhere in between. But the combination of playoff-caliber clubs and the idyllic, one-of-a-kind atmosphere elevated that contest from a great regular-season game to an unforgettable one whose highlights will feature in MLB promotional ads forever. 

This year's game won't provide the same sort of postseason preview. The Cubs and Reds are mired in disappointing seasons, both clubs sitting around 20 games under .500. Cincinnati sold hard at the deadline, sending franchise ace Luis Castillo to Seattle, breakout utility man Brandon Drury to San Diego, veteran bat Tommy Pham to Boston and rotation stalwart Tyler Mahle to Minnesota. The Cubs are a year removed from a difficult deadline themselves, one that saw World Series heroes Javy Báez, Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant leave the North Side for good.

Now, don't get it twisted, there are still stars on both sides: Willson Contreras and Ian Happ stayed put in Chicago through the deadline, and the Joey Votto show rolls eternal in Cincy. But to put it frankly, neither of these ballclubs is particularly good, and neither of them will feature in the beautiful mayhem of October.

But Thursday night, these beloved clubs struggling through a dark patch will shine regardless, their effervescent history on full display. The atmosphere, the pomp, the circumstance, the zip and fizz of a showcase game — it's all too grand to ignore. Last year's game taught us as much. 

A baseball game is only as important as what you take away from it.

On Aug. 18, 1963, Ric Willenborg and his father drove from Dyersville, across the width of Illinois, to see the White Sox take on the Yankees for Ric's first big-league game. One can only imagine the anticipation as they inched east through the cornfields toward Chicago. The big city, the big leagues, the big stars.

Much like at the Field of Dreams Game in 2021, the Sox and Yanks were two of the American League's premier clubs. They'd eventually finish first and second in the circuit, the Yankees emerging 10.5 games ahead by season's end. And even though Maris and Mantle were injured at the time, the Yankees had the AL MVP in Elston Howard and a 38-year-old Yogi Berra in his final year as a Yankee, while Chicago had two Hall of Famers on its roster in Hoyt Wilhelm and Nellie Fox.

But unfortunately, Ric Willenborg caught a dud. A true stinker. A game that most folks would describe as "forgettable." The Yankees raced to an early lead in the first inning behind a symphony of singles and never looked back, blowing out the hometown South Siders 8-2. 

But Ric kept the memories and ticket stubs; he'll share both if you drive out to Dyersville.

*** *** ***

The myth and the reality of baseball are rarely one and the same. You, me and every other baseball-crazed fan who spends their free time obsessing over this sport are the oddballs. Most Americans, from California to Dyersville to Maine, don't fill their brains and their days with "America's Pastime." For most, baseball does not echo the rhythm of life. 

As difficult as that is for me, someone who has devoted his whole life to this goofy pursuit, to accept, this game is just that: a game. It's a novelty, a beautiful distraction capable of occasional, lasting imprints on the canvas of American life. 

For the Ric Willenborgs of the world, it's simply geographic happenstance, a pin on a map, a story the grandkids in Orlando can tell about where their granddad lives, a slight uptick in business every August.

Ric raised a family, ran his business, filled his time golfing and running the local basketball league. Twenty years ago, he chaperoned a school trip to New York. Baseball was there in theory, sure, four miles down the road in a cornfield. But the game didn't shape him like it shaped me. And that's OK.

But what really matters, what really gets me thinking, are the moments that break through the haze and leave a lasting impact on the non-obsessed like Ric.

On an average MLB evening, three or four ballgames stay close enough to truly captivate. The rest fade into stats on a page, forgotten to the enormous abyss of baseball history. The baseball crazies like you and I have our faces so close to the screen, the magic so accessible to our fingertips, that at times we're unable to find the sense of wonder in the mundane. A Tigers-Royals matinee blowout in August doesn't deserve our attention because the score and the standings say so.

But that's all relative, constructed. A baseball game is only as important as what we take away from it and what we put into it. 

Whether it's an unforgettable Sox-Yanks showdown on national TV beneath a picturesque Iowa sunset or a daytime clunker in 1963, all big-league games have the ability to wow if you're willing to be wowed. If you can suspend disbelief for a night, if you can have the emotional honesty to let a kid's game shape you for an afternoon, it's possible to capture that magic when the golden hour strikes. 

Every single game has the potential to be someone's favorite big-league game. 

On Thursday night four miles outside Dyersville, the same will be true for Cubs vs. Reds. Many youngsters will come as die-hards and leave the same. Others will feel the irresistible lure of the game and depart as converts to the church of baseball.

Some who experience a once-in-a-lifetime evening under the lights will one day leave baseball behind to discover other joys, to pursue other passions, to fill their lives with other meanings. 

But they'll forever hold on to the memories and the ticket stubs. 

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.