Maybe you like watching your baseball on TV or listening to radio broadcasts of your local team, maybe you even use the MLB audio service or SiriusXM to listen to games from around the league. What ever your method of following baseball, now with the 2024 schedule out, here’s an idea for you if you want to try and see every team play during the 2024 regular season.
The 2024 season is just like 1996 in that both are in what is a leap year that begins on the same day. The regular season of course starts earlier now with the extra off days, so what would have been a Monday April 1 opening day is now Thursday March 28, the final day of the season is October 1.
In 1996, I had just turned 23 and was beginning my senior year of college. Since my wife and friends give me grief and justifiably so about how so much of my way my memory works revolves around baseball, I thought about a quick and easy way to put together the lists of games.
There will be two lists for you to choose from. The first is based off the opening day matchups in 1996, when the Athletics actually did play home games in Vegas because of a delay in the finished reworking of the Coliseum to make the Raiders happy. That didn’t work out so well now did it? The other is based off the schedule of games for Sunday July 21, a date that means a lot as it was when I first met one of my best friends through a church retreat I was attending.
Since the Rays and Diamondbacks did not yet play games in 1996, their going to be listed on both of these lists for their three game set scheduled for mid august in Florida.
The Astros were an NL team in 1996, but the 2024 Houston interleague slate will have them at home against both Atlanta and the dodgers, the two teams they will play on these lists, which were home dates in the Houston Astrodome in 1996. The Brewers, an AL team in 1996 now in the NL played against the Angels on the road to open and the Yankees at home that July, in 2024 the Yankees visit Milwaukee while the Angels play the Brewers in Anaheim. Also, the Washington Nationals who were the Montreal Expos in 1996 will be a road team in both of these situations as they were at Cincinnati to open the 1996 campaign and in July, they played the Mets at New York.
One thing you will quickly note here, the list of games for the first set only involves one divisional matchup between Detroit and Minnesota, they were not division mates in 1996. The second set has 11 divisional matchups, the max you can have is 12, the only one of the intraleague matchups for 2024 that is not intradivisional in set two is Detroit and Toronto, who were division mates in 1996. So in some ways, the second set of games is much easier to arrange from a travel point of view, since 11 of the 15 matchups will take place twice in the host ballpark.
Now for your 2024 game dates.
First option with 2024 dates listed, 45 total games.
Two series, Pittsburgh at Miami and Washington at Cincinnati which were the 1996 opener are also the 2024 opener. To see two games at each city, it will be opening at Miami.
Pirates at Marlins, March 28-29
Nationals at Reds, March 30-31
Royals at Orioles, April 1-3
Yankees at Guardians, April 12-14
Rockies at Phillies, April 15-17
Cardinals at Mets, April 26-28
Padres at Cubs, May 6-8
Blue Jays at Athletics, June 7-9
White Sox at Mariners, June 10-13
Brewers at Angels, June 17-19
Tigers at Twins, July 2-4
Dodgers at Astros, July 26-28
Red Sox at Rangers, August 2-4
Braves at Giants, august 12-15
Diamondbacks at Rays, August 16-18
Second option with 2024 dates listed, 46 total games.
Athletics at Rangers, April 9-11
Braves at Astros, April 15-17
Yankees at Brewers, April 26-28
Phillies at Marlins, May 10-12
Twins at Guardians, May 17-19
Cubs at Cardinals, May 24-26
Reds at Pirates, June 17-19
Dodgers at Giants, June 28-30
Mariners at Angels, July 11-14
Tigers at Blue Jays, July 19-21
Royals at White Sox, July 29-31
Rockies at Padres, august 2-4
Diamondbacks at Rays, August 16-18
Orioles at Red Sox, September 9-11
Nationals at Mets, September 16-18
Blind Baseball Perspective 