Major League Baseball asked the Trump administration whether a regular-season game can be played inside a national park, and a Park Service official scouted Grand Teton as the White House keeps the idea at arm's length.
Major League Baseball has asked the Trump administration whether the national pastime can be played inside a national park, opening an unusual conversation about whether the sport's showcase games can reach America's most iconic landscapes. The league confirmed the outreach, and a senior National Park Service official has already traveled to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming to scout possible locations inside the park's boundaries. No decision has been made and no permit has been issued, but the idea drew national attention within hours of surfacing.
At the center of the discussion is Grand Teton, a 310,000-acre park in northwestern Wyoming framed by the jagged Teton Range and anchored by the Jackson Hole valley. It ranks among the most visited parks in the country, drawing millions of visitors a year to its lakes, trails, and wildlife habitat. The concept is being weighed in the spirit of Major League Baseball's Field of Dreams games, which turned an Iowa cornfield into a national event and returned this season after a four-year pause.
The league's interest is not hard to trace. For a decade, Major League Baseball has taken regular-season games to places that are not major-league ballparks, and the events have produced some of the sport's most memorable scenes. League officials reached out to the administration to ask whether a national park could host a similar game.
An MLB official said the concept was inspired by the success of the Field of Dreams series, which first paired the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox in 2021 in a ballpark carved beside the movie site in Dyersville, Iowa. The event returned in August and is already scheduled again for 2027, when the Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals are set to meet in Dyersville on Aug. 12.
Grand Teton offers a different kind of backdrop than any prior site: snow-capped peaks, open sagebrush flats, and wildlife that includes bears, wolves, bison, elk, and pronghorn. That setting is exactly what makes the park a candidate, and exactly what makes the idea contentious.
The White House was careful to frame the conversation as something the league initiated rather than a directive from the president. In a statement, the administration said Major League Baseball had asked whether it was possible to host a game at a national park, similar to the Field of Dreams event, and that no decisions had been made.
Officials added that the idea is not a presidential directive, is not being driven by the Interior Department, and is not a White House or administration priority. They also noted that the National Park Service has not granted a permit for a game, leaving the proposal squarely in the exploratory stage.
National Park Service Deputy Director Frank Lands visited Grand Teton this week and reviewed three potential locations within the park. The site visit signals that the agency is at least willing to look, even as it keeps the idea at arm's length.
The outreach also fits a broader push by the administration to expand public access to federal lands, including new executive orders on hunting and fishing, and repeated pledges to keep parks open to the people who love them. Any eventual event would still have to clear the same environmental and permitting reviews that govern the parks.
Playing big-league games outside big-league stadiums is no longer novel. Major League Baseball staged a game at Fort Bragg in North Carolina in 2016, built a temporary ballpark beside the Field of Dreams movie site, and played at the historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, honoring the Negro Leagues and the late Willie Mays.
The Fort Bragg game was itself a feat of construction: a 12,500-seat temporary stadium built in roughly three months on the North Carolina base, then dismantled afterward. That blueprint -- build, host, remove -- is the model a park event would follow.
In 2025, the league turned Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee into a baseball venue, drawing a sellout crowd to a speedway better known for stock cars. Each event traded the familiar dimensions of a major-league park for a setting that fans remembered long after the final out.
What makes a national park different is that none of the previous sites sat inside protected federal land. A Grand Teton game would likely require building a facility rather than using existing infrastructure -- a step the league has taken before, but never inside a park managed first for conservation.
Conservation groups and some local officials pushed back quickly. The National Parks Conservation Association's regional director, Betsy Buffington, called the Grand Teton site irreplaceable and the idea of putting a stadium there ludicrous, pointing to the bears, wolves, bison, elk, and pronghorn that share the valley. Teton County commissioner Luther Propst said federal officials had not sought local input and described the concept as a departure from the tradition of national parks.
Supporters of the idea counter that a single, carefully planned event, staged away from sensitive habitat and fully removed afterward, could introduce millions of Americans to public lands without lasting harm. The administration has stressed that no plan exists and that any proposal would face the ordinary review process.
Grand Teton is not the only park that could fit the concept. Its combination of flat valley floor, dramatic skyline, and existing visitor infrastructure makes it the most discussed option so far.
For now, the ballpark in the Tetons is a conversation, not a blueprint. The question to watch is whether Major League Baseball and the Park Service move from site visits to a formal proposal, which would trigger public comment, environmental review, and a decision on whether a regular-season game can be played inside a national park for the first time.
If it happens, the seventh-inning stretch would come with a view no ballpark could ever build.
Major League Baseball asked the Trump administration whether a regular-season game can be played inside a national park, and a Park Service official scouted Grand Teton as the White House keeps the idea at arm's length.
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