The dream team: Local youth baseball team plays at Field of Dreams site

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - The Cincinnati Riverbats, a local youth baseball team, got the opportunity to play at the Field of Dreams baseball field on Sunday.

The team of middle schoolers took a dream trip to baseball heaven after head coach Chris Booth decided to make plans to the movie site’s field last year.

“When I saw the game out there last year - that the Reds are getting ready to play in - that’s what kind of sparked my interest and my thought, like, ‘gosh, we should probably go out there and probably play, I think that would be really cool,’” Booth said.

The field was decorated in some of the unmistakable props from the movie, and the team even re-enacted a few unforgettable scenes.

That’s when it “hit him,” Booth said.

Before the championship game, Booth asked the fathers to join the team on the field.

“That’s really kind of the backbone of the movie,” Booth said. “He’s trying to find his dad and his love of baseball. [I] thought, ‘my gosh, what a great opportunity.’ So, all the dads went out and played catch with their sons and a couple of them came up afterwards and said, ‘thank you very much, that really meant a lot.’”

Just like the movie, the tournament ended the same.

Same field, same lights and the same life-long memory with their fathers.

“I’ll probably remember it for the rest of my life,” Riverbats player Finn Sedgwick said.

The Cincinnati Riverbats are used to traveling out of town for tournaments, to places like Indianapolis and Cooperstown, but the Field of Dreams tournament was surreal for the team.

“It’s just something you can never really forget,” Riverbats player Brooks Booth said. “I mean, a normal trip out of town, it’s something you might remember, you might not, but this is something you can’t really forget.”

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