GLENDALE, Ariz. — They are missionaries, spreading the gospel of Major League Baseball.
For the second time in the past 11 seasons, the Dodgers will open the regular season with games on a different continent. In 2014, they played the first MLB games in Australia, starting their season with two games at the Sydney Cricket Grounds.
This year, they will play the first regular-season MLB games in South Korea, facing the San Diego Padres twice next week at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.
In between, they played regular-season games in Monterrey, Mexico (May 2018). The franchise actually has a long history of international travel. They made a five-game tour of Taiwan and Japan in 1993, played a historic exhibition game in Beijing, China in March 2008 and visited Taiwan again in 2010.
“This is an exciting part of baseball’s effort to expand our reach globally, internationally,” Dodgers team president Stan Kasten said. “As you know we have a lot of different teams going all over the globe. We went to Australia in 2014. Teams go to London every year now, Mexico every year now. This year, we’re also going to have programs in India, France, the DR (Dominican Republic). We’re also going to have games in the DR. It’s all part of that effort. All teams have opportunities. We were lucky enough to be selected for this.”
Yeah, lucky. Or maybe MLB just recognizes the international appeal of the Dodgers brand. And that brand has only become more powerful globally – particularly in Asia, where new Dodgers Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are tremendously popular.
“I just think MLB is going to use that. I think the Dodgers are going to use that,” said pitcher Clayton Kershaw, one of only two players from those Australia games still in a Dodgers uniform (though he won’t be making the trip to South Korea). Miguel Rojas made the trip in 2014 but didn’t play in either game.
“Obviously there’s a lot of financial incentives involved and all that so it…
Read the full article here
