9 can't-miss highlights of the 2024 MLB schedule

As someone who is perpetually planning his entire social schedule around baseball, I always find the release of next season’s schedule particularly exciting.

Do you have a trip planned for Southern California next year? Now you know when you can catch a ballgame while you’re there. Want to see when Mike Trout or Elly De La Cruz is coming to your town next year? Now you know exactly when. Trying to find the right weekend to get back home for your yearly trip to your team’s ballpark?

• MLB unveils 2024 schedule packed with marquee matchups

Now you can make your pick. Your 2024 is now spread out in front of you.

Every baseball game is fun, and a news item of its own. But digging through the schedule as it's released, you can find certain standout games, series and matchups, all of which we already know, sometimes more than a year out, are going to be massive events.

Here’s a look at nine highlights of the 2024 schedule:

1. The first games in South Korea
The season will begin a week earlier than usual for the Dodgers and Padres, who will become the first MLB teams to play in South Korea, opening the season March 20-21. The last time MLB opened the year overseas was in 2019, in Tokyo, but the baseball hotbed that is South Korea gets the honor this year. We can all get up super early in the morning and relive those days of watching KBO games in the early days of the pandemic. Or Dodgers and Padres fans can book some tickets for a trip they’ll never forget.

2. Oh, there are other countries hosting games next year, too
Obviously, the United States and Canada will be hosting games as always. But MLB is going extra international next year as part of the MLB World Tour. In addition to South Korea, there will be games in Mexico City (Rockies-Astros on April 27-28) and London (Phillies-Mets on June 8-9). And in 2024, we’ll even get some Spring Training games outside the United States when the Red Sox and Rays play in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on March 9-10. So make sure your passports are updated.

3. A gaggle of superstars returning to their old homes
There is nothing quite like the charged atmosphere of a one-time star coming back to greet the fans who once cheered him, now wearing a different uniform. We’re getting quite of few of those in 2024: Francisco Lindor visiting Cleveland on May 20-22; Corey Seager back at Dodger Stadium on June 11-13; Xander Bogaerts seeing his old pals at Fenway Park on June 28-30; and perhaps most exciting, World Series hero and all-time Cub Anthony Rizzo playing at Wrigley Field for the first time since he was traded in 2021 on Sept. 6-8. Prepare yourself for emotional pregame videos.

4. Correa sees what his life could have been in front of fans who will be happy to remind him
Carlos Correa did not, in fact, change teams before the 2023 season: He’s still a Twin, just like he was in 2022. But he almost changed teams, twice: He was nearly a Giant, and then nearly a Met. He hasn’t played in front of Oracle Park or Citi Field fans yet, but he will next year, on July 12-14 and July 29-31, respectively.

5. De La Cruz goes to Coors
Lots of guys can hit baseballs a very long way. And they tend to hit them even farther at Coors Field. But we have not seen Elly De La Cruz hit the ball at Coors Field, not yet. But we will. June 3-5. Careful, all aircraft, satellites and potentially moons in the greater Denver area.

6. Bryce and Trout in Anaheim together for the first time in a long time
Bryce Harper and Mike Trout -- because they were rising prospects together, because they’re both going to be in Cooperstown someday -- are going to be forever linked. But they don’t actually get to play against each other very often. The day after the 12th anniversary of their “permanent co-arrival,” April 29-May 1, they’ll play in Anaheim for the first time in seven years … and with Harper wearing the road Phillies uniform for the first time in the matchup.

7. A very special night in Birmingham
In 1948, a 17-year-old named Willie Mays played at Rickwood Field for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues, his home park near his hometown of Westfield. (He still got to play high school football, too.) More than 75 years later, Willie and the Negro League players he played alongside will be honored at Rickwood, the oldest baseball park in the United States, for a regular-season game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals on June 20 as a part of Juneteenth celebrations. It will be a game unlike any other, at one of the most legendary parks in baseball history. And Say Hey Willie will be there.

8. The Red Sox head back to St. Louis for the 20th anniversary of that title
One of the best stories of Boston’s 2004 World Series title was late in Game 4, when it was obvious the Red Sox were about to do this, the Cardinals' organization made the decision to let in all those Red Sox fans waiting outside, who were there just to be there for the biggest moment of their sports-fan lives, inside the old Busch Stadium so they could see it. We presumably won’t see Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon run of the field again, but you’ll definitely see lots of Red Sox with misty eyes, back in the city where it all happened.

9. The last weekend of the season
It’s impossible to truly know what matchups in the final weekend will be the most important: It’s not necessarily clear what the most important matchups will be this year, let alone 15 months from now. But there’s some clear potential here. The Rays finishing up at Fenway? The Rangers in Anaheim? The Reds -- wow, where will the Reds be by the end of next year? -- at Wrigley? The Padres in Phoenix? So many stories are waiting to be told between now and then. That’s the weekend, a weekend that will be here sooner than you think, when we’ll get all the answers.