There was always time for one more inning.

Or at least that’s what you told yourself.

The sun was dropping. Dinner was probably waiting. Somebody’s mom had already called once.

But you could still see the ball.

So you played.

Maybe there were nine kids. Maybe there were four. Maybe the bases were old sweatshirts and somebody’s driveway was foul territory.

For one kid, baseball happened on a perfectly maintained Little League diamond.

For another, it was a street lined with parked cars, where a ground ball under a Buick was probably a double.

For someone else, it was a vacant lot, a backyard or an open patch of land where somebody looked around and decided:

This’ll work.

It didn’t really matter.

Once the game started, imagination took care of everything that was missing.

The handful of friends became 40,000 people.

The backyard became a major league stadium.

Bottom of the seventh. Game 7 of the World Series.

And somehow, you were always the one coming to the plate.

Everybody’s Field of Dreams looks a little different.

For some of the best baseball players in the world, Thursday night it will actually be in Iowa.

The Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins will play Major League Baseball’s Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, giving players from both teams an opportunity that could very well come only once in their lives.

Think about where baseball has already taken them.

Packed stadiums. National television. All-Star Games. For some, even the World Series.

They’ve reached a level nearly every kid who has picked up a bat has imagined and almost none ever experience.

And Thursday night, baseball will give them something else.

They’ll walk through the corn.

That’s it.

And somehow, that’s everything.

There is something wonderfully simple about grown men who play baseball for a living emerging from rows of corn carrying gloves.

The game comes just 10 days after the MLB trade deadline, when the baseball world was consumed by contracts, prospects, payrolls, buyers and sellers.

That’s baseball, too.

So are launch angles, exit velocities and spin rates.

But you don’t need Statcast to measure goosebumps.

Sometimes something is just cool.

And sometimes a game that has become incredibly complicated has a way of reminding us how simple it can be.

A ball. A bat. A glove. A field.

Somebody to play with.

That’s enough.

Six days later, we’ll get another reminder much closer to home.

The Little League Baseball World Series begins Aug. 19 in South Williamsport, where some of the best young players in the world will experience something that, like Thursday night’s game in Iowa, might happen only once.

Watch their faces.

Watch a 12-year-old walk into Howard J. Lamade Stadium and try to take it all in.

Watch a kid hit a home run and get lost in the moment rounding the bases. Watch teammates celebrate. Watch them trade pins, meet kids from around the world and soak in a few summer days they might spend the rest of their lives remembering.

They only get to be this age once.

Some will continue playing in high school or college. Against enormous odds, perhaps one will someday play professionally.

Most won’t.

That’s OK.

Right now, they get to play.

And maybe that’s what connects Williamsport and Iowa more than anything.

Joy.

Wonder.

The Little Leaguer walking into Lamade Stadium for the first time.

The major league veteran walking through the corn.

One might be 12 years old, standing on the biggest baseball stage imaginable.

The other might have thousands of professional innings behind him and far fewer ahead.

One doesn’t know where baseball might lead.

The other knows just how far it already has.

For one night, both get to experience something for the first time.

And their expressions might not look all that different.

Baseball can make both of them look like kids.

Maybe that’s part of the romance of this game.

Before the major league stadiums, there was somewhere else.

Maybe baseball started with Dad or Mom throwing a ball in the backyard. Maybe with siblings hitting Wiffle balls. Maybe you went door to door until you rounded up enough friends for a game.

Six kids?

Good enough.

Someone had a bat. Somebody else had a ball. You found four things that could pass for bases.

The tree was in play. Over the fence was a home run. Into the neighbor’s yard was an out because nobody wanted to go ask for the ball back.

And anything under the Buick was still a double.

Those weren’t inconveniences.

They gave the game character.

Kids have been doing some version of that forever.

Give them a place to play and they’ll figure out the rest.

A city street. A suburban backyard. A vacant lot. A patch of grass in a rural community.

It doesn’t need foul poles or dugouts.

Someone looks around and says:

This’ll work.

In some ways, that’s what makes the Field of Dreams setting feel so natural.

Someone looked at an Iowa cornfield and imagined a baseball field.

Kids have been doing their own version of that for generations.

They take ordinary places and turn them into something extraordinary.

The Phillies have played in some of the grandest ballparks in the world.

Thursday night, they’ll play in a cornfield.

Funny thing is, it might look a little more like where they started.

The game begins small.

For a lucky few, the backyard eventually becomes Little League, high school, college, the minor leagues and finally those stadiums they once imagined.

Then, after spending an entire baseball life moving toward bigger fields, bigger crowds and bigger stages, one of the most memorable places the game can take you is somewhere small again.

A field surrounded by corn.

Maybe some of the players walking through it Thursday watched Field of Dreams growing up.

Perhaps they saw that field on a television screen long before they had any idea where baseball would take them.

Reaching the major leagues was probably dream enough.

Playing in a place that belonged to the movies?

How could they have imagined that?

Sometimes the dream carries you somewhere you never even knew to dream about.

There is a reason one of the movie’s most memorable exchanges is also one of its simplest.

“Is this heaven?”

“No, it’s Iowa.”

No skyline. No upper deck.

Just a baseball field surrounded by corn.

And somehow, that’s enough.

Six days later, another relatively small place will become the center of the baseball world.

South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

There won’t be corn beyond the outfield. There will be green hills, packed stands and kids from around the world playing baseball.

For them, it might feel a little like heaven, too.

Of all the spectacular, state-of-the-art stadiums across the country, it’s remarkable that two of baseball’s most magical settings don’t need a skyline.

One sits among the hills of South Williamsport.

The other rises from the corn in Iowa.

One has spent decades producing endings that feel like they were written in Hollywood.

The other was born there.

And you can’t manufacture what makes either one special.

You can build the ballpark.

You can schedule the games.

You can’t schedule the magic.

Maybe Thursday night someone sends a baseball climbing into the Iowa sky.

For a few seconds, everyone follows it.

Then it disappears beyond the fence and somewhere into the corn.

Maybe fireworks explode overhead.

Maybe a veteran who has seen almost everything baseball has to offer stands there and takes it in.

A once-in-a-lifetime moment near the end of a career that began with a kid who simply wanted to play.

And next week, maybe a 12-year-old in Williamsport produces a Hollywood ending.

A walk-off hit. A home run. A diving catch.

Or maybe years from now, something else will stand out.

Walking into Lamade Stadium.

Time with teammates.

Having a catch before the game.

One last summer when baseball seemed like the biggest thing in the world.

These moments are fleeting.

The Little Leaguers in Williamsport don’t need to understand that yet.

They’re living them.

The veteran in Iowa probably understands it quite well.

There are only so many games.

Only so many summers.

Only so many times you get to put on the uniform.

So take it in.

Get lost in the wonder.

Because before long, summer will end.

School will start. The evenings will get shorter.

But there’s still some daylight left.

Enough for another game.

Find a ball. Find a bat.

Knock on a few doors.

See who’s around.

Figure out where first base is.

Don’t worry if the field isn’t perfect.

It never had to be.

Your imagination can take care of the rest.

It can turn a street into the World Series.

A backyard into the silver screen.

A little field into the biggest place in the world.

And if you’re lucky enough, maybe someday the game will take you farther than you ever thought possible.

Maybe even all the way back to another little field.

One surrounded by corn.

Funny how far a game can take you.

And how beautifully it can bring you back.