LONDON – The path up to London Stadium, officially named Stratford Walk, stood adorned with Cubs and Cardinals signage Thursday afternoon as the sounds of drilling and clanging marked the final stages of preparation for the series ahead.
In the immediate vicinity of the stadium, home of West Ham United, MLB’s 2023 London Series slogan “old rivalry, new ground” adorned lamp posts, bridge rails, open real estate inside the converted ballpark.
This weekend’s series has been a long time coming. After the Yankees and Red Sox played the inaugural London Series in 2019, the Cubs and Cardinals were slated to carry on the event the next year. But the pandemic had other plans. Two years later, the Cubs and Cardinals are set for a two-game series Saturday and Sunday.
“It’s good for the league,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said last week. “And everyone I’ve talked to that did the trip in ‘19 really enjoyed it. They said everything was first class, it was a really good baseball and personal experience.”
The trip also comes during a hot streak for the Cubs, who have won 10 of their last 12 games to climb to 3 ½ games back of the NL Central-leading Reds.
“Are there inconveniences and challenges from a baseball standpoint with travel and days off and all those things?” Hoyer said. “Yeah, of course. But it’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do.”
This will be the Cubs’ first time playing regular season games in England and their second set of contests in the country, according to team historian Ed Hartig. Between the 1888 and 1889 seasons, the club (then the White Stockings) went on a six-month world tour with a select team dubbed the All-Americans.
The tour, the brainchild of majority owner and team president Albert Spalding, included stops in Hawaii, Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, today’s Sri Lanka, Yemen, Egypt, Italy, Monaco, France, Scotland, Ireland, and – of course – England.
Spalding himself had played exhibition games in England a decade and a half earlier, when his Boston Red Stockings and the Philadelphia Athletics toured the country for a month. And he learned an important lesson then about promoting the game.
According to Hartig, Spalding later blamed himself for the Brits’ apathetic reaction to baseball when he presented it as a replacement for cricket. He found the more effective approach during the White Stockings’ tour was offering it as a supplement.
England’s preference between the sports is still clear. Thursday’s national tabloids highlighted “Bazball” and “hardball,” but neither referred to America’s favorite pastime. The former identified England’s new style of play in the flat-batted sport, and the latter referenced tensions in the English Premier League’s summer transfer window. International cricket and professional soccer.
Even London Stadium’s own website didn’t give MLB’s London Series top billing under “upcoming events.” That went to a monster truck show next month.
MLB has its work cut out from it in England. That’s why the Cubs and Cardinals are here.
While the London Series hasn’t taken over the city, it has shown a presence. In the week leading up to the game, a Cubs hat or polo could be spotted now and again at tourist attractions. On Thursday, the Horse & Guardsman transformed into a Cubs pub for an official fan rally. Crews set up event infrastructure both down at Trafalgar Square, which will host a three-day fan festival, and London Stadium.
Perhaps the most promising sign for baseball in England was a gaggle of children and their chaperones weaving their way through the bustling walkways outside of Stratford’s sprawling mall Thursday afternoon.
Making their way back from an MLB First Pitch event at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, they wore branded white t-shirts and crisp ball caps, half of them Cubbie blue and half Cardinals red. Each child clutched a Wiffle Ball bat and ball, held together in clear plastic packaging. They were bringing the game home.
