‘We Are Baseball’ tour takes Hall of Fame on road

Rob Manfred became the first Major League Baseball Commissioner to appear at the iconic “Field of Dreams” movie site in Dyersville, Iowa, announcing details on Thursday for a multiyear Baseball Hall of Fame Tour that will come to hundreds of North American cities starting this summer, and will be known as “We Are Baseball.”

Amid the same cornfields where Shoeless Joe Jackson magically emerged on the silver screen, and only a short toss from where Ray Kinsella asked his late father if he wanted to “have a catch,” people continued to come — this time to watch in a town-hall setting and via an exclusive live stream on MLB.com as Manfred revealed that “We Are Baseball” will begin just 90 miles away on July 3-10 in Davenport, Iowa.

Manfred was joined by 2015 Hall of Fame inductee and MLB Network analyst John Smoltz to set in motion a tour that will bring fans a one-of-a-kind baseball experience through the illustrious history of the game with compelling historic artifacts, cutting-edge technology and digital media. The exhibit will travel to six cities in its first four months, providing guests nearly 1,000 hours of access to exhibits provided from the vast collections of The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Tour stops are scheduled July 3-10 at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport; July 15-31 at Miller Park in Milwaukee; Aug. 5-21 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City; Aug. 26-Sept. 11 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis; Sept. 16-29 at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.; and Oct. 7-23 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“I think the idea of taking another baseball shrine — Cooperstown — and making it mobile so that people around the country have a realistic opportunity to share in the experience, is just a great idea,” Manfred said after he and Smoltz interacted with many youth players from the region. “For us, the opportunity to combine technology with an iconic location like Cooperstown was appealing. We thought it would be more appealing to young people and important to the game overall.”

Many of the game’s most iconic artifacts will be with the Tour, including the bat used by Bobby Thomson when he hit the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” walk-off home run in the 1951 regular-season playoff; the glove worn by Willie Mays when he made the famous catch in Game 1 of the ’54 World Series; the trophy given to Ty Cobb for his ’11 season, when he led the league with a .420 batting average; Babe Ruth’s No. 714 home run ball; and the jersey worn by Roberto Clemente during his final season in 1972.

Through its official ticketing provider, Tickets.com, the Tour’s general public tickets across all six locations will be available beginning at 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday on the Tour’s official website powered by MLB Advanced Media at HallofFametour.com.

Denise Stillman, head of the ownership group that recently purchased the iconic 193-acre site immortalized in the 1989 Oscar-nominated movie, said the “We Are Baseball” announcement event was “very historic.”

“We’ve never had a Major League Baseball Commissioner at the ‘Field of Dreams’ movie …

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