Corny? No way -- Cubs can't wait for Field of Dreams

This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian's Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

When it was announced last fall that the Cubs would be playing in the Field of Dreams game this year, one of the first promotional graphics featured a group of players walking through the famous cornfield to the baseball diamond. One of the Cubs in the image was slugger Patrick Wisdom.

“People started sending that to me,” Wisdom said with a smile. “I was like, 'Wait, really?' That kind of caught me by surprise. I'm super excited. I think it's going to be really fun.”

Wisdom has the kind of power that can send baseballs soaring out of Wrigley Field and bouncing on Waveland Ave. Now, he can try to see if he can make one disappear into the corn at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, when the Cubs take on the Reds on Thursday in the second Major League game played at the site.

Last summer, the White Sox faced the Yankees in the kind of instant classic that lived up to the Hollywood billing. After actor Kevin Costner -- star of the 1989 baseball film that turned an Iowa farm into a movie set for the ages -- emerged from the corn in the pregame festivities, the Sox and Yankees slugged it out in an affair that ended on a Tim Anderson walk-off and 9-8 victory for the South Siders.

If you build it, drama will unfold.

“You couldn't ask for a better game, you know?” Cubs second baseman Nick Madrigal said.

Last year, Madrigal played for the White Sox, but his season ended prematurely due to injury before he was traded to the Cubs at the end of July. He watched his former team take on the Yankees -- who appeared poised for the win after Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton blasted ninth-inning home runs -- and rally from afar.

“Talking to those guys, they said it was unbelievable,” Madrigal said. “That was one of my favorite movies. I always liked watching it, so I always wanted to go there since I heard they were playing a game there. It's pretty cool.”

Knowing the game was coming up soon, Cubs manager David Ross sat down with his kids recently to watch the movie.

“I'm looking forward to playing in Iowa in the cornfields. That's cool,” Ross said. “I think it's really neat. I think anybody that grew up -- especially in my generation and era -- who watched that movie, it would be a really cool moment.”