A brief history of Cubs neutral site games

Sunday afternoon at 2:05 p.m. CT, the Cubs and Boston Red Sox will play Game 162 of the 2026 regular season at the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., a neutral site. The Cubs played there earlier this year, taking two of three from the Rays back in April, and the Red Sox, who as an A.L. East team travel there twice a year, lost five of the six games they played in the Trop this year — and just wrapped up the second of the two series less than a week ago, last Sunday.

With that, I thought I’d post this history of Cubs neutral site games.

Before I get to the Cubs, here are complete lists of all MLB neutral site games in the 20th Century and in the 21st Century, via Retrosheet. (There were 14 other neutral site games for the Chicago N.L. ballclub in the 19th Century when baseball scheduling was much more casual than it is now.)

The Cubs have played 34 neutral site games in the Modern Era, 31 regular-season games and three World Series games. Here’s a brief review of all of the Cubs’ neutral site games since 1900.

These were made necessary by a fire at the Polo Grounds in April 1911; the Giants played at Hilltop Park, home of the then-New York Highlanders until late June. The Highlanders wouldn’t be named “Yankees” until 1913. The Cubs split the four games.
at Fenway Park

The Braves’ home at the time, South End Grounds, had a smaller capacity than Fenway, which was only two years old at the time. Imagine this happening today:

On August 3, 1914, Red Sox President Joseph Lannin sent a telegram to Braves President James Gaffney offering the use of Fenway Park (free of charge) in place of the smaller South End Grounds where the Braves played their home games. A month later, on September 3, Gaffney wired Lannin that the Braves would play their remaining home games at the American League park.

Though the Braves had used Fenway Park before, they officially called the ballpark home for the rest of the 1914 regular season.

On August 3, 1914, Red Sox President Joseph Lannin sent a telegram to Braves President James Gaffney offering the use of Fenway Park (free of charge) in place of the smaller South End Grounds where the Braves played their home games. A month later, on September 3, Gaffney wired Lannin that the Braves would play their remaining home games at the American League park.

Though the Braves had used Fenway Park before, they officially called the ballpark home for the rest of the 1914 regular season.

The Cubs lost all four games; those were the “Miracle Braves” on their way to a World Series title.

The Braves continued to use Fenway Park as their home field until Braves Field opened on Aug. 18, 1915. More sweeps: The Cubs won all four games in May and lost all four games of the July series.

While you might say these weren’t “neutral site” games as the Braves used Fenway as their home for 87 total home games from late 1913 through mid-1915, the Retrosheet link lists them as neutral site and says “fire at Huntington Street Grounds” and “delay in opening of Braves Field” are the reasons for the switch. I’m going to go with Retrosheet and consider the 12 games the Cubs played against the Braves at Fenway in 1914 and 1915 as “neutral site.”

Major League Baseball and the Cubs decided that the team’s home World Series games would be played at Comiskey Park, which was known at that time as “The Baseball Palace of the World.” Erected in 1910, Comiskey Park held twice as many people and had an upper deck, so MLB and the two teams could split more cash from gate receipts by using the White Sox‘s ballpark.

Major League Baseball and the Cubs decided that the team’s home World Series games would be played at Comiskey Park, which was known at that time as “The Baseball Palace of the World.” Erected in 1910, Comiskey Park held twice as many people and had an upper deck, so MLB and the two teams could split more cash from gate receipts by using the White Sox‘s ballpark.

The Cubs lost Game 1, won Game 2 and lost Game 3.
at Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, New Jersey

The Dodgers wanted a new stadium to replace aging Ebbets Field. The minor-league team in Jersey City had departed after 1950 and officials there thought having some Dodgers games in Jersey City might help them attract another team. The Dodgers played seven games there both in 1956 and 1957. There was an option to renew the deal for another three years, but the Dodgers left for Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

The Cubs lost both games, 3-2 in 1956 and 4-0 in 1957.
at the Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan

These were the first MLB games played outside North America. The Cubs and Mets were chosen for these games because of the popularity of Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza in Japan at the time. The Cubs won the first game 5-3 behind a strong outing from Jon Lieber and lost the second one 5-1 on an 11th-inning grand slam by Benny Agbayani. I attended these games in Tokyo. The second one ran nearly four hours until 11 p.m. local time and had it run another 30 minutes it would have caused a transit mess, as back in that day Tokyo subways stopped running at 11:30 p.m.

Here are articles I wrote on the 20th anniversary of those games on March 29 and March 30, 2020.

The Expos played 22 games in San Juan in both 2003 and 2004, and the Cubs were part of that in 2003. These games were important for the Cubs in their race toward the NL Central title that year. The Cubs lost two of the three and ended the set one game out of first place. I went to these games as well; one thing I remember is the large number of fans who had taken the short flight from the Dominican Republic to see Sosa play. The games drew 15,632, 18,002 and 12,559 in a stadium with a capacity of about 20,000.

The Cubs won the first game of the series 4-3, lost the second 8-4 and lost the third 3-2.

These two games were moved to Milwaukee due to Hurricane Ike bearing down on the Houston area. The first one was historic:

Carlos Zambrano threw the Cubs’ first no-hitter in 36 years in the first of the two games. Incidentally, part of that video is from the Houston TV feed and you can hear Jim Deshaies, then an Astros broadcaster, calling some of it. It was officially a “neutral” site, but due to the proximity to Chicago, nearly all of the 23,441 in attendance were Cubs fans. I went to this one, too, the first Cubs no-hitter I had seen in person. It took another 16 years for the Cubs to throw one at Wrigley Field, by Shōta Imanaga, Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge against the Pirates Sept. 4, 2024.

Big Z’s no-hitter was the first at a neutral site. Walker Buehler and three Dodgers relievers threw the second one May 4, 2018 at Estadio de Beisbol Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, the first no-hitter thrown outside the U.S. or Canada.

What’s been nearly forgotten from those two 2008 games in Milwaukee is that the Cubs almost no-hit the Astros the next day as well. Ted Lilly took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before Mark Loretta singled with one out to break it up. It was the only hit the Astros had in a 6-1 Cubs win, and that was more MLB history:

The Cubs became the first team in major league history to throw a no-hitter and one-hitter in back-to-back games.

The Cubs became the first team in major league history to throw a no-hitter and one-hitter in back-to-back games.

Eighteen years later, the Cubs are still the only team to do that.

The Cubs embraced the spirit of Little League ball, having fun with kids before and during the game, especially Anthony Rizzo:

The Cubs are scheduled to meet the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2027 Little League Classic on Aug. 19, 2027.

The Cubs scored three runs in the first inning and got five shutout innings from Drew Smyly and defeated the Reds 4-2. Here’s my recap of the game, and this is an scene that will be remembered forever, Cubs and Reds players walking onto the field together, out of the cornfield:

at London Stadium, London, England

The Cubs pounded Adam Wainwright for seven runs in the first four innings of the Saturday game in London and cruised to a 9-1 win. Ian Happ smashed two home runs for the Cubs.

On Sunday, behind Marcus Stroman, the Cubs raced out to a 4-0 first-inning lead, then a key error by Trey Mancini led to three unearned Cardinals runs. The bullpen couldn’t hold the lead and a ninth-inning Cubs rally fell short. The Cubs lost 7-5.

Here’s the BCB Saturday game recap and Sunday game recap of the two London games.

Here are highlights from the Cubs’ 9-1 win on June 24, 2023:

And here are highlights from the 7-5 loss to the Cardinals in London June 25, 2023:

The Cubs traveled 7,000 miles to Asia only to lose both games.

In the first game, Shōta Imanaga no-hit the Dodgers for four innings (though he walked five), then Ben Brown got hit hard in the fifth and the Dodgers defeated the Cubs 4-1.

In the second contest, the Dodgers scored five runs in four innings off Justin Steele and cruised to a 6-3 win. That included a home run by Shohei Ohtani that was pretty clearly fan interference, but that was never going to be called in Ohtani’s home country.

Here are the BCB game recaps from the March 18 game and from the March 19 game.

Here are highlights from the first game on March 18:

And here are highlights from the second game of the Tokyo Series, March 19:

Overall, the Cubs’ record in neutral-site games is 13-18 in the regular season and 1-2 in the World Series.