The Kansas baseball team will play a unique exhibition game this fall as part of its preparation for the 2027 season.
KU and Iowa will face off in Dyersville, Iowa, near the site where the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” was filmed. The matchup is set for Oct. 10 at 1 p.m., Iowa announced on Monday.
The ballpark has been the site of past MLB and minor-league games and will host more on Aug. 11 (the Iowa Cubs and St. Paul Saints) and Aug. 13 (the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies). It will also serve as the home stadium of a Northwoods League team called the Dyersville Dreamers beginning next summer. The KU-Iowa exhibition will be the first collegiate game between power-conference teams at the venue.
Iowa went 33-23 (15-15 Big Ten) during the 2026 season and beat Illinois but lost to Michigan State and Purdue in its conference tournament.
KU is coming off one of its best seasons in program history, a campaign that featured the first regular-season conference title since 1949, first Big 12 tournament title since 2006 and first-ever NCAA regional in Lawrence (which the Jayhawks also won). Several key players exhausted their eligibility or departed via the MLB Draft, but KU is set to retain a core group including the likes of second baseman Cade Baldridge; pitchers Mason Cook, Boede Rahe, Riane Ritter and Manning West; catcher Augusto Mungarrieta; center fielder Tyson Owens; and third baseman Dylan Schlotterback.
The Jayhawks already had one piece of schedule news released during the offseason. KU will take part in the Frisco College Baseball Classic, a marquee early-season tournament in Frisco, Texas from March 5-7. The field includes Southern Miss, UC Irvine and defending national champion Oklahoma, which knocked out the Jayhawks in the Lawrence Super Regional.
