TV channel, first pitch and tickets for Chicago Cubs v St Louis Cardinals

Baseball is returning to the UK after a few years’ absence due to a certain virus which swept the globe. Four years after the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox played the first regular season MLB series in London, the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals are coming to the capital to the delight of European baseball fans.

Last time around the smaller ballpark at the London Stadium yielded record numbers of home runs and a frantically high-scoring first inning, in a series that saw notorious home-run hitter Aaron Judge tee off from home plate.

This series may not have quite the same high-scoring derby, but there are a plethora of heavy hitters among the Cubs and Cardinals and it promises to be an essential viewing experience for London-based baseball fans.

How to watch MLB London Series

Date: Saturday 24 – Sunday 25 June

First pitch: 6.10pm Saturday, 3.10pm Sunday

TV channel: BT Sport, or via the BBC Sport website, and iPlayer

Live stream: BT Sport from 5pm Saturday, 2pm Sunday

Tickets: Still available at ticketmaster.co.uk/mlb

The London Stadium, transformed

Once again the series is taking place at West Ham United‘s home ground, the London Stadium, which has been transformed to facilitate major league baseball once again, and a rivalry between two NL Central organisations which goes back 130 years.

Over 144,000 square feet of artificial turf, and 345 tonnes of infield clay has been installed on top of 4,000 tonnes of UK sourced aggregate. The synthetic turf, which sits on top of the football playing surface, will be stored and reused for future series.

Eighteen-metre-tall foul poles have been installed, and a batter’s eye, backstop, batting cages, dugouts, temporary clubhouses, and over 46,000 square feet of netting are currently being built.

The players are looking forward to the experience of playing in London too, with St. Louis Cardinals’ outfielder Lars Nootbaar telling i: “If I remember correctly, there was a lot of homers flying in that series? I hope they don’t change those conditions! That would be great. I think that’d be awesome if we got those homers going.

“It’d be good for us. We haven’t had the start that we wanted to, so that might be a good thing to shake it up a little bit too.”

Cardinals Catcher Willson Contreras also told i: “They hit a lot of homers over there. It seems like the ball flies. I have a very good friend in the Yankees, Gleyber Torres. We talked about going to London and how cool it was to be there and now I’m glad it is my time!”

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