Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association announced Wednesday that the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres will open the 2024 regular season with two games in Seoul, South Korea on March 20 and 21, 2024. The two-game set will be a home-and home series and the contests will represent the first ever regular season games in Korea.
“We can’t wait to play meaningful Major League games for the very first time in front of the outstanding baseball fans of South Korea next season,” said Dodger President and CEO Stan Kasten. “The Dodgers have a long and proud history of helping to grow the game abroad, highlighted by our trips to Mexico, China and Australia. It’s very exciting to add Korea to the list. I know our players are thrilled to put their talents on display in a country so rich with baseball tradition and talent, including former Dodgers Chan Ho Park, Hee-Seop Choi and Hyun-Jin Ryu.”
For the Dodgers, this will mark their first international trip since playing the Padres in Monterrey, Mexico in 2018. Los Angeles has also played in the 2014 Sydney opener vs. the Diamondbacks, the 2010 exhibition games in Taiwan against the Chinese Professional Baseball League All-Stars, the 2008 exhibition games against the Padres in Beijing, China, the 2003 exhibition games against the Mets in Mexico City and the 1988 exhibition games against the Montreal Expos in San Juan and Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Over the years, the Dodgers have also played additional exhibition games and done barnstorming tours in Japan, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
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Los Angeles has had four South Korean-born players wear Dodger Blue, starting with Chan Ho Park (1994-2001, 2008), who was the first native of Korea to play in the Majors in 1994. Since then, Hee-Seop Choi (2004-05), Jae-Wong Seo (2006) and Hyun-Jin Ryu (2013-19) have played for the Dodgers. Park (2001) and Ryu (2019) both made All-Star teams and are two of four Korean-born players to appear in the Midsummer Classic, joining Byung-Hyun Kim (2002) and Shin-Soo Choo (2018).
The Opening Series in South Korea will mark the ninth international opener outside the 50 United States and Canada in Major League history, following the 1999 Opening Game in Monterrey, Mexico between the Rockies and Padres; the 2000 Opening Game in Tokyo, Japan between the Mets and Chicago Cubs; the 2001 Opening Game in San Juan, Puerto Rico between the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays; the 2004 Opening Series in Tokyo between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and New York Yankees; the 2008 Opening Series in Tokyo between the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics; the 2012 Opening Series in Tokyo between the Athletics and the Seattle Mariners; the 2014 Opening Series in Sydney, Australia between the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks; and the 2019 Opening Series in Tokyo between the Athletics and Mariners.
Today, MLB and the MLBPA also announced games next year in Mexico City (Astros vs. Rockies, April 27-28) and the Dominican Republic (Rays vs. Red Sox, March 9-10) in addition to the previously announced London Series (Mets vs. Phillies, June 8-9).
