Final Big League Weekend at Cashman Field

Last weekend, the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians took on each other in the annual Las Vegas Big League Weekend. This event is organized every year and hosts two MLB clubs to play a set of spring training games in Sin City. This year’s edition was the very last held at Cashman Field as the Las Vegas 51s will move to nearby Summerlin next season.

In a rematch of the 2016 World Series, the Indians outscored the Cubs in the two games 16-5. In game one the score was bearable (5-1) but the second game was disastrous as the Cubs fell to the Indians 11-4.
Las Vegas native Kris Bryant went 1 for 3 in game one and 1 for 2 in the second game.
The Cubs participated in the BLW for the fourteenth consecutive time.

After years of negotiation, the Las Vegas city council approved the ballpark plan and the costs that come with it, not so long ago. About a month ago, the groundbreaking of the new ballpark in Summerlin took place.The new ballpark in Summerlin will have a capacity of 10,000 and natural turf.

In the last decade, there were lots of complaints about the state Cashman Field was in.
Players and staff criticized the facility noting poor conditions of the playing surface, bullpens, and clubhouse. The weight room was smaller when compared to other Triple-A stadiums, with infielder Ty Kelly calling it “basically just a room… not an actual weight room”. The batting cage was also a point of concern for the players as it was a single lane and only accessible by walking out of the clubhouse to the parking lot. Perhaps the biggest malfunction in the history of the ballpark was during a 51s game on August 22, 2015,  when the stadium sewage system backed up, causing raw sewage to flow into the dugouts. The smell was so strong that players were forced to watch the rest of the game from chairs on the field. Minor League Baseball named the facility as the worst in the Pacific Coast League and all of AAA baseball.

After the 51s were bought by the Summerlin Las Vegas Baseball Club LLC,a joint venture of Howard Hughes Corp. and Play Ball Owners Group, talks regarding a new ballpark moved forward slowly. Eventually, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved a twenty-year $80MM naming rights deal to help finance the $150MM ballpark.

With this in mind, it became clear that this year’s Big League Weekend will be the last held at Cashman Field. If Las Vegas Ballpark will be ready in time, the next edition will be held in Summerlin.