The 2026 MLB Field of Dreams Game is bringing Major League Baseball back to Dyersville, Iowa, for the first time since 2022, with the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies set to meet on August 13 at 7:30 PM ET.
The refurbished site will once again put a professional baseball field next to the famous cornfield that made the location iconic. That setting creates one of the most unusual questions surrounding the game: what actually happens if a home run lands in the corn?
It is not a hypothetical scenario. During the inaugural 2021 game, eight home runs were hit into the corn, including Aaron Judge‘s blasts and Tim Anderson‘s dramatic walk-off shot. The answer is more complicated than simply sending someone into the field to retrieve the ball.
What happens when a home run lands in the cornfield?
A home run that lands in the cornfield counts normally, but the ball can become difficult or impossible for MLB to authenticate as the actual game-used home run ball.
Nick Senzel #15 of the Reds runs to the dugout at Field of Dreams in 2022 (Source: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
That unusual situation already occurred during the 2021 Field of Dreams Game, when several home runs disappeared into the corn beyond the outfield fence. MLB’s authentication team later explained that the balls recovered from the corn could not be distinguished from one another or from batting-practice balls.
The problem is not determining whether the batter hit a home run. The ball has already cleared the playing field, so the scoring play is unaffected. The issue comes afterward, when MLB tries to establish the identity and chain of custody of the baseball.
Normally, MLB authenticators track game-used baseballs throughout a game. The league says authenticators document a ball’s use and, once it leaves play, can place a tamper-proof hologram on it with a unique code that can later be checked against MLB’s database.
A ball that disappears deep into the corn presents a very different challenge. Once multiple baseballs are lying among the stalks, there may be no reliable way to prove which one was the ball hit by the player.
MLB’s authentication program therefore cannot simply declare a recovered ball to be an authenticated home run ball without being able to establish that connection. That distinction is particularly important at the Field of Dreams venue because the corn is not merely decorative.
It is deliberately part of the outfield design, creating the memorable visual of home runs literally vanishing into the landscape. Tim Anderson‘s ninth-inning walk-off home run in the 2021 game, for example, was described by MLB as going “cornward” as it cleared the fence.
Can a home run ball from the cornfield be kept as a souvenir?
Yes, a ball recovered from the corn can be kept as a souvenir, but MLB may not be able to authenticate it as the specific home run ball hit during the game. That distinction was central to what happened at the 2021 Field of Dreams Game.
That does not mean every ball associated with the event is impossible to authenticate. MLB’s authentication system is designed to establish a documented connection between a specific object and what happened during the game.
Why is the cornfield so difficult for MLB to search?
The cornfield makes it difficult to locate and positively identify a baseball because the balls can disappear among dense rows of stalks, while multiple balls may be present in the same area.
MLB specifically noted that the home run balls recovered from the corn at the 2021 event were indistinguishable from one another and from batting-practice balls. There is also a fundamental difference between finding a ball and proving its identity.
An MLB authenticator can document a baseball while it is in play and retrieve it immediately after an event. Once a home run ball disappears from view into the corn, that direct observation is gone.
The Field of Dreams setting therefore creates an unusual memorabilia problem: the corn can preserve the mystery of the home run while making the ball itself harder to verify. That is why MLB authenticated the corn stalks in 2021 rather than assigning authentication to the balls recovered from the field.
