The Cubs go West

I’ve never loved the West Coast road trips for the Cubs. Before Interleague play, and before the Rockies and Diamondbacks were in the league, it used to be an 8, 9 or 10-game swing through San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with almost all the games starting past 9 pm where I was.

Typically, I’d listen to the game on the radio, as the TV was in the other room. I would pretend I was go to fall asleep listening, as many time I had to get up early the next morning. But I would almost never actually fall asleep, and I’d be up past midnight. And I remember being both frustrated by the result and then exhausted the next day. Or if I actually went to sleep while they were leading, I’d wake up to see that the Cubs had given up some late runs to lose.

But when I look back at the actual results, things were not as bad as I remembered. From 1983 to 1992, which were my first 10 years of following the Cubs, they actually went 89-91 in those West Coast games. The only really bad season was 1991, when they went 4-14.

It’s actually a bit sad that I remember the losses much more than the wins. Although, for the rest of Cubs history since I became I fan, I definitely remember the few good years as opposed to the much larger number of bad or mediocre seasons.

West Coast trips for the Cubs drastically changed in 1993, the Colorado Rockies came into the league, and while they were on Mountain time, some of the West Coast trips included Colorado, breaking up the California west coast swing. That season, the Cubs went on a road trip to Montreal, New York and the San Francisco. And later, they had a 13-game trip to Pittsburgh, L.A., San Diego and Denver. The New York to San Francisco trip happened again in September and Pittsburgh to L.A. to San Diego closed the season.

It was a tough time to remember exactly when the Cubs were playing day-by-day, but probably much rougher on the players who had to deal with those cross-country flights.

All of the schedule changes over the last 25 years have changed the was West Coast swings have felt, with the introduction of the Diamondbacks, and the the different permutations of Interleague play. Now, it seems like these are more frequent, shorter trips out west.

The Cubs had a similar road trip to Los Angeles and San Diego last season. With the season-ending injury to Justin Steele on our minds, fill-in starter Colin Rea pitched 3.1 innings of 1-run ball in the rubber game of the series, followed by a strong 1.1 innings from Brad Keller, who had made the team as a non-roster player. It was really the first time the two of them hinted at what there worth would be in 2025, and winning 2 of 3 from the Dodgers felt like a confidence boost for the team.

Of course, they’d lose 2 of 3 in San Diego, making it a .500 road trip, which I’d gladly take again in 2026.