Baseball Fans Dilemma: Little Leaguers in Bristol OR Big Leaguers On The “Field of Dreams”

For many baseball fans in our area tonight will present a real dilemma when it comes to what game to watch.  A group of 12-year olds from Toms River East Little League will face the Pennsylvania state champions in the winner’s bracket final of the Mid-Atlantic Region Tournament in Bristol, Connecticut.  It’s an important game because the winner moves into Saturday’s championship game and is assured a trip to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania which is hallowed grounds for kids across the country. Game time tonight is 7pm and it will be on ESPN.

Meanwhile in Dyersville, Iowa the Yankees and White Sox will play where the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” was filmed.  It’s not exactly the same field where Ray Kinsella/Kevin Costner got to play catch with his ghost father in a scene that still makes me cry.  Major League Baseball has built a new field adjacent to the one used in the movie as part of a $5 million project that may or may not be a one-time thing.  However the nearly 8,000 fans who will attend the game will walk through actual cornfields to get to the field and Costner and actor Dwier Brown who played his father will be among those in attendance.  This game was supposed to be played last year but cancelled by the pandemic and while it might seem corny I wouldn’t miss it for anything.

Problem…game time is 7pm on Fox which is the same time Joey DeMeo, Cole Garrison, Jason Verderosa, Carson Frazier and the other kids from the Windsor Avenue gang try and punch their ticket to Williamsport.

So what do me and others do tonight?  Back-and-forth, back-and-forth.  If there are two big games being played I will watch both…not quite as memorable as “if you build it, he will come” but it will have to do.