Yesterday, the MLB released its official team schedules for next season and although traditional Opening Day is scheduled for March 28, a historic series will kick off the 2024 season one week earlier overseas. 

On March 20, 2024, the Los Angeles Dodgers will face the San Diego Padres in the first-ever major league game held in South Korea. The two-game series will be played in the country’s capital city of Seoul at a stadium yet to be decided.

The 2024 season holds two additional scheduled international series in both Mexico and the United Kingdom. Next Spring will begin the third season in the past five years in which the MLB has sent teams to share America’s pastime with the rest of the world.

The Padres have competed internationally four times in the past, all in Mexico, and the Dodgers have done so twice in both Mexico and Australia. It will also be the second time these two teams have competed against one another abroad, the first time being in Monterrey in 2018.

Back in 2017, the MLB had planned to begin the 2019 and 2020 seasons in Asia and continue with the planned United Kingdom and Mexico series’ just like they do today, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, plans were put on hold. Now back on an efficient path, the MLB can continue its international influence with a quality NL West matchup. 

There could not be a better way to fire up this division rivalry between two West Coast teams with an abundance of star players on each side. Although both lineups could look very different to start next year, especially with this season’s trade deadline approaching, the series in Seoul will highlight Korean history present in squads.

There is one player who is most looking forward to next year’s matchup because he will be playing in front of a home crowd no matter what. Padres’ second baseman Ha-seong Kim was born and raised in South Korea and has expressed his excitement for next year’s special opening. 

Kim is one of four Korean-born players currently on a major league team. The other three are Ji-man Choi and Ji-hwan Bae of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Hyun-jin Ryu who used to be a starting pitcher for the Dodgers before ending up with the Toronto Blue Jays. Of the 26 total Korean players to come into the MLB, the Padres have housed two including Kim and former pitcher Cha-seung Baek.

The Dodgers have just a bit more of a history with Korean-born players having housed four total, including former pitcher Chan-ho Park, the first Korean-born player to compete in an MLB game.

The world will be watching the first ever “Seoul Series” in South Korea. With recent global excitement still flowing in from the recent World Baseball Classic, international interest in American baseball could be taken even higher thanks to a worldwide display of Southern California’s finest ball clubs.