If you purchased The Complete Guide to Spring Training 2020, you know we included a chapter on Las Vegas Ballpark, anticipating that Big League Weekend would return. And, indeed, Big League Weekend is back–in a big way.
It’s been an annual tradition for the Chicago Cubs to play a weekend series in Las Vegas, but the streak was broken in 2019 when Las Vegas Ballpark was under construction.
The Las Vegas Aviators have scheduled not one weekend, but two weekends of MLB exhibition games featuring the Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds.
The Cleveland Indians will face the Oakland Athletics on Saturday-Sunday, February 29-March 1. Game times for the Spring Training series are at 1:05 p.m. (PT).
The Cincinnati Reds will then face the Chicago Cubs in a two-game series on Saturday-Sunday, March 7-8 at 1:05 p.m. (PT). Times are subject to change due to potential TV scheduling. Big League Weekend individual game tickets will go on sale in early 2020 (date TBA).
Cleveland will make their third all-time appearance (1998, 2018) in Las Vegas for Big League Weekend. 2018 BLW featured a rematch of the 2016 World Series. The Cubs captured the World Series championship for the first time in then-108 years (1908) in a thrilling seven-game series against the Indians.
The Cubs defeated the Indians, 11-4, on March 17, 2018 before a sellout crowd of 10,651 at Cashman Field. The Indians then defeated the Cubs, 11-4, on March 18, 2018 before a sellout crowd of 10,774.
Oakland, parent team for the Aviators, will make its sixth all-time appearance to Las Vegas (1994, 1997, 2000, 2015). The Athletics also played the first six games of the 1996 Major League Baseball season (April 1, 3-7) at Cashman Field due to construction delays in their home stadium. The games marked the first time ever that an MLB season opener was held at a minor league park.
The A’s last appearance was in 2015 in a two-game series against Chicago. The Cubs defeated the A’s twice: 5-3 on March 13, 2015 before a crowd of 8,007 at Cashman Field and 3-1 on March 14, 2015 before a sellout crowd of 10,375.
We’ve updated the Cubs, Athletics, Indians and Reds schedules to reflect these additional games. In addition, we’ve updated the Tampa Bay Rays and Cincinnati Reds schedules to reflect updated game times — which also affects pretty much every spring-training schedule in both the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues.
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