2020 MLB schedule released, highlighted by Cubs-Cardinals in London

Major League Baseball released the 2020 schedule on Monday, and next season will begin on Thursday, March 26, with all 30 teams in action. Every team hasn't played on the same Opening Day since 1968. Was supposed to happen last year but two games were postponed.

Might the Los Angeles Dodgers be having a ring ceremony on March 26 for winning the World Series this fall? They haven't won the Fall Classic since 1988 but are +250 second-favorites at the Westgate. L.A. opens the 2020 season at home against the arch-rival San Francisco Giants. The March 26 Opening Day is the earliest in league history other than international games.

The Houston Astros are +200 favorites on the MLB futures odds to win their second World Series in three seasons and will open next year at home against Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels. Let's go ahead and presume that Justin Verlander will be starting Opening Day again for Houston.

Two games/series clearly stand out from the rest in 2020. One is the Chicago Cubs taking on the rival St. Louis Cardinals at London Stadium from June 13-14 as part of the now-annual London Series. The Yankees and Red Sox played in those games this year and it was a huge hit. St. Louis will be the home team.

The other Chicago team, the White Sox, will host the New York Yankees in the first-ever Field of Dreams game on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the ballpark made famous from the movie "Field of Dreams" in an Iowa cornfield. It's the first-ever MLB game in the state of Iowa (which is actually Cubs country not White Sox). The league is building an 8,000-seat ballpark there in Dyersville.

There's also a late April series in Puerto Rico between the Mets and Marlins. The only new ballpark for next year is Globe Life Field in Arlington, and the Texas Rangers will debut that on March 31 against the Angels. Globe Life will become the seventh big league stadium with a retractable roof (can you guess the others?).

The 2020 regular season concludes on Sept. 27. In an odd coincidence, MLB released the schedule on the 25th anniversary of the strike that ended the 1994 campaign without a postseason.