New York Yankees players and coaches pose for a team photo before a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Dyersville, Iowa. The Yankees and White Sox are playing at a temporary stadium in the middle of a cornfield at the Field of Dreams movie site, the first Major League Baseball game held in Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

DYERSVILLE, Iowa (AP) — As the bus carried the New York Yankees through the cornfields blanketing this serene, rolling farmland of northeast Iowa, Aaron Judge noticed a difference from the usual arrival in the next city.

The ride to the Field of Dreams site to play the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night had everyone’s attention, like a bunch of kids who couldn’t believe what they were getting to do.

“It was the first time people had their headphones out, and they were just glued to the windows, checking out the scenery,” said Judge, the three-time All-Star right fielder.

“We have a lot of guys from different countries who really haven’t seen the country like this, or guys from big cities who really haven’t seen open fields and stuff like this, so it was pretty cool driving in and seeing everybody in town kind of standing on the side of the roads with signs and cheering us on,” he said.

The made-for-TV event, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had the billing as the first Major League Baseball game in this state that’s usually focused on college and community sports, spotlighted by presidential campaigns and fueled by the hog and grain industry.

Judge provided a pair of picture-perfect images, launching two long drives into the cornstalks. Tim Anderson hit the eighth homer of the game, a two-run liner in the ninth inning that lifted the White Sox over the Yankees in a 9-8 thriller.

Anderson delivered a Hollywood ending, too, circling the bases as fireworks exploded. So what if it was more from “The Natural” than “Field of Dreams”?

This won’t be a one-time visit, either. Commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed that the Field of Dreams game will return in August 2022, with the teams to be determined.

The made-from-scratch stadium — built to hold about 8,000 fans watch the White Sox and Yankees play in one of the most anticipated mid-August games in history — was placed next to the actual diamond where the 1989 movie starring Kevin Costner was shot outside the town of Dyersville, population 4,000.

Costner came back for this, stealing the scene with a slow, ponderous stroll into the outfield his character Ray Kinsella often took in the film before stopping to watch the real White Sox and Yankees emerge from the corn for pregame introductions.