CHICAGO — This was something that was supposed to happen in 2020, but COVID-19 had other thoughts.
But three years later, two of the biggest rivals in Major League Baseball will meet in the United Kingdom for an international series.
On Thursday, the league confirmed that the Cubs and the Cardinals will play a two-game series in London in 2023. The games will be played at London Stadium on June 24th and 25th.
This comes three years after the teams were initially supposed to play in Olympic Stadium in London on June 13th and 14th of 2020, which was announced in the summer of 2019. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the event and no MLB games have been held in Europe since.
The first installment of the London Series took place in 2019 when the Red Sox faced the Yankees on June 29-30 at London Stadium.
This will be the first time the Cubs have played a regular season game outside of the continental United States or Canada since September 9-11, 2003 when they played Montreal in a three-game series at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The Expos won 2-of-3 games in that series, but the Cubs would go on to win the National League Central division title.
On March 29-30, 2000, the Cubs played the first two games of their season against the Mets in the Tokyo Dome, splitting the two contests.
An announcement of the match-up in London comes as both teams are facing each other in a three-game series in St. Louis. After a Cardinals’ win on Tuesday at Busch Stadium, the second game of the series was rained out on Wednesday, with a doubleheader scheduled on Thursday.
