Major League Baseball is set to announce a scheduled regular season contest between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds in 2025 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Virginia, The Athletic reported Tuesday. An official announcement is expected Friday.
While it’s a long way off, two former Clemson baseball players currently on MLB rosters could potentially represent their alma mater at the Bristol event.
Former Clemson pitchers Spencer Strider and Carson Spiers are currently on the Braves and Reds’ rosters, respectively. Strider made just two starts this season before undergoing season-ending elbow surgery. He’s expected back for the 2025 season.
When healthy, Strider can be one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball. The 25-year-old right-hander was a 20-game winner for Atlanta a year ago, posting a 3.86 ERA in 32 starts and leading the Braves to the National League East division title. He led all of baseball in strikeouts in 2023 with 281 in 186 2/3 innings.
Spiers is in his first full season with the Reds and has become an unexpected bright spot in Cincinnati’s starting rotation. The 26-year-old right-hander made his seventh start of the season for the Reds on Sunday and is 4-3 with a 3.59 ERA in 12 total appearances.
Like a lot of sports, Major League Baseball has gotten innovative in recent years about playing games outside traditional host venues.
In 2021, the league’s “Field of Dreams” game between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox in Iowa was a rousing success, as was this year’s St. Louis Cardinals-San Francisco Giants matchup at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham.
The league also holds an annual regular season game in Williamsport, Pa., the site of the Little League World Series.
Having an event at Bristol Motor Speedway, one of the crown jewels of NASCAR, would seem to be baseball’s boldest move yet in terms of scheduling. But it won’t be the first time Bristol will play host to a marquee sporting event outside of racing.
Most famously, in 2016, Virginia Tech faced Tennessee in a regular season football game before an NCAA-record crowd of 156,990.
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