The first recorded baseball game was held in 1846 when the Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club. The game was held at the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, New Jersey.

By now, Hrusovsky has cataloged more than 1,800 high school baseball fields and worked his way through a quarter of U.S. states, though the lift grows heavier as he moves into more populous ones.

From a cornfield in Iowa, the Yankees and the Chicago White Sox will emerge Thursday to play on a new field near the original setting for the film “Field of Dreams.” ...