West Ham's London Stadium will undergo a permanent change this weekend when Major League Baseball comes to the capital, with a huge overhaul taken place over the last two weeks to get the stadium ready.
MLB will hold two regular season events at the home of the Hammers, with the St Louis Cardinals squaring off against the Chicago Cubs on Saturday and Sunday. The two games are the continuation of the MLB's International Series, which started in 2019 but was paused due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The first time baseball came to London, the New York Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox twice in a slug-fest which saw MLB attendance records shattered. This time around, however, things are drastically different.
For one thing, London Stadium workers have been busy installing two massive dressing rooms, each big enough for an MLB team and staff, which will now be permanent parts of the stadium from now on. The locker rooms, which for this weekend have been decked out with Cardinals and Cubs logos and colouring, are just off the tunnel used by West Ham, closer to the field than the football dressing rooms.
Baseball will return to the London Stadium for another four games at least - in 2024 and 2026 - while the new Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2026 will likely see games continue in the UK. Paris will host a series in 2025.
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West Ham's London Stadium will have baseball locker rooms going forward due to the commitment to MLB in the UK (Getty Images for MLB Europe)As part of the major overhaul at the West Ham stadium, officials imported 345 tonnes of clay from Pittsburgh, which will be used on the infield and will be kept in London to be used next year.
Last time out, many of the units and much of the turf went back to the States to be used in the iconic Field of Dreams game, but this time it'll stay - proving MLB's commitment to London.
West Ham's London Stadium has been transformed for the arrival of Major League Baseball (Getty Images for MLB Europe)Speaking to Mirror Sport, MLB's field consultant Murray Cook said: "We did a lot of searching in 2016,17,18, this clay is very familiar to the players. 25 of the 30 MLB teams use this clay, so they're used to it. It's a great product and we buy it once - use it over and over again."
Down on the field, baseball fans will be pleased to learn the seating has been moved in to bring the crowd closer to the action. Additional changes have also been made inside the stadium to make the London Stadium seem more like a usual ballpark from the US, with Cook adding: "We reconfigured these seats to make it more baseball-like."
Units for the dugouts have been imported from the Field of Dreams game (Getty Images for MLB Europe)A total of 144,000 square feet of artificial turf has also been imported to the UK, and will sit on top of West Ham's usual playing surface. The stadium will return to Premier League standard within five days of the final out on Sunday afternoon.
St. Louis Cardinals will play Chicago Cubs in the MLB World Tour: London Series 2023 on June 24-25 at London Stadium. Tickets are available now at ticketmaster.co.uk/mlb
Order the official 100-page programme for St. Louis Cardinals vs Chicago Cubs for big-name interviews, quirky features, stats and a scorecard. Available now from https://reachsportshop.com/special_edition/mlb-official-programme/
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