Right on schedule, MLB delivered its 2014 team schedules. The season starts with another overseas sojourn, as the Dodgers and Diamondbacks will play two games at the venerable Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia. The North American slate begins on Monday, March 31, which is the first time in recent memory that the networks are bypassing a single Sunday game opener. The final day of the season will be Sunday, September 28. As usual, times for most games are to be announced, though based on how these things usually go you can guess what times the games will be played.
Without further ado, here’s the first half schedule:
Now the second half:
Surprises? Obviously, the A’s aren’t cursed with facing Felix Hernandez on Opening Day. But they won’t avoid him during the first week, as the M’s come in immediately after the series with the Indians, with the King likely to pitch on Saturday. Other observations:
- Interleague matchups will be the usual home-and-home 4-game series against the Giants in June. Against the NL East, the A’s are also matched up 4-game, home-and-home against the Mets. They have 2 road series against the Marlins and Braves, and 2 home series against the Nationals and Phillies.
- There are no truly grueling stretches of play. The longest streaks of consecutive games played are 17 going into the All Star Break and 17 in August, most of the latter trip at home.
- The Yankees and Red Sox only visit once each, bookending a mid-June homestand.
Personally, I’m eyeing a return to Citi Field on June 24-25, when the A’s are in town. That should be followed up by a trip to Barclays Center or Madison Square Garden for the NBA Draft on June 26. Later this week I’ll put together the league travel schedule grid, which will help me (and maybe you) plan additional ballpark endeavors. Downloadable schedules are available in the left sidebar under Travel Tools.
newballpark.org 
This presumes the A’s will still be in Oakland next year.
@pjk – The companies that are contracted to create the schedules have to assume that the A’s will be in Oakland.
June 2014 is gonna be rough, but they’ll cross that bridge when they get there.
I’m eyeballing Chicago in September to hit up CHW & CHW… and MIL if I can talk my wife into wasting a day in Milwaukee.
Not that I think this affects the A’s stadium situation (since the solution is pretty obvious), but it might affect the Rays.
The Jays are hosting the Mets in Montreal for an exhibition series in March. Montreal is one of the last relocation possibilities, and if they draw well they’d become a legitimate relocation threat for MLB.
Problems that caused the team to move in the first place. Terrible attendance (but they did used to average 25k in the early 80s and have a fair amount of corporate sponsorship possibilities). Terrible Canadian dollar (it has been strong and the economic outlook for Canada has is positive). Ownership problems (Quebec cable giant Quebecor might be looking for content and in a world of escalating TV rights, it might make sense for them to own some content). Stadium issues (they have a perfect interim ballpark in the Olympic Stadium, and this is the same province building an NHL arena with entirely public funding). Obviously there’s a big difference between the interest in hockey and baseball in Quebec, but if I were a Rays fan, I’d pay close attention to the attendance of those exhibition games.
re: Montreal. MLB needs to find someplace to be what LA is to the NFL – a city to be used as a relocation threat to force cities hosting franchises to fall in line and pay for new stadiums. Oakland has yawned over the A’s since MLB doesn’t really have a place to ship the team (yet) and contraction is undesirable. So Selig issues his “A’s cannot and will not stay in their existing situation” statements but Oakland knows it’s all a lot of hot air and the city can continue to do what it has done for the A’s for the last 40 years – less than nothing.
Le Montreal Lumiere…. it’s gotta great ring to it.
Just to play the doomsday scenario here, if the A’s couldn’t get a lease at the Coliseum and ended up sharing AT&T Park, there are 10 days that both teams play at home:
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12 May : Braves @ Giants, White Sox @ Athletics
13 May : Braves @ Giants, White Sox @ Athletics
14 May : Braves @ Giants, White Sox @ Athletics
26 May : Cubs @ Giants, Tigers @ Athletics
27 May : Cubs @ Giants, Tigers @ Athletics
28 May : Cubs @ Giants, Tigers @ Athletics
13 June : Rockies @ Giants, Yankees @ Athletics
14 June : Rockies @ Giants, Yankees @ Athletics
15 June : Rockies @ Giants, Yankees @ Athletics
3 July : Cardinals @ Giants, Blue Jays @ Athletics
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The first 3 conflicts could be easily eliminated by swapping the Braves and Giants home and away series as the Giants play in Atlanta May 2nd – 4th when the A’s are out of town. I didn’t see any quick fixes for the other games though. The last conflict, one of the teams could play a double header (either Giants the previous day or A’s the following day) if desperate, though.
This could be good news for the Rays if it get out of it’s Trop lease and moves to Tampa. If a move was to happen I wonder what the Yankees would do with it’s triple A team.
http://ballparkdigest.com/201308076504/major-league-baseball/news/st-pete-mayor-relents-on-rays-lease-tampa-moves-to-woo-team
As for my A’s travel plans looks like I will have look at going to Chicago 8-10 September and Arlington at the end of the season.
@Mike2 Their AAA team plays in Scranton, PA. It’s their Advanced A team that plays in Tampa.
@Ezra
Thanks for the correction. I forgot about Scranton and always assumed the Tampa Yanks was AAA.
Ezra, the Giants & Cards have a mutual off day before that series that could be swapped instead of the overlap. The Rockies & Giants can swap a set of home & away in May. The Braves one would need union approval since it would result in the Giants going West & East without a day off. The May 26th to 28th series would need a new location.
I’m wondering what ML thinks about the St. Pete 30 year Trop Field usage contract the Rays have. Keeping in mind that the city built the stadium years before Rays moved their with entirely public funding.
How binding could this contract actually be? I’ve seen people say the team would need to compensate the city for any potential lost dollars the city faces if the team moves. Ie. the city could loose ~$200 Million and the team would have to compensate accordingly. This seems like bullcrap. I mean if the city actually built the stadium for the Rays I could see them recouping some of the building costs, but this isn’t even the case.
@David – The lease terms dictate that the Rays can only leave under a mutually agreeable buyout, which means that the team can’t just throw some lump sum (estimate of remaining debt service) at St. Pete and walk away. For now Stu Sternberg seems to have accepted that.
Finally the home opener is against someone besides the Mariners!