Cubs - Red Sox Tropicana Field game? A nor’easter could send baseball to Florida

The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs could finish the regular season somewhere almost nobody expected: St. Petersburg, Florida.

A powerful nor’easter threatening Boston has Major League Baseball considering moving the Red Sox-Cubs finale from Fenway Park to Tropicana Field. As of Friday afternoon, the move had not been officially announced, but preparations in St. Pete were already underway.  

And yes, this is every bit as weird as it sounds.

Why could the Red Sox Cubs Tropicana Field game happen?

Weather has already scrambled the schedule.

Sunday’s originally scheduled game was moved to Friday afternoon, creating a split doubleheader at Fenway. That leaves one final game to play, with increasingly nasty weather expected in Boston this weekend.  

The National Weather Service forecast calls for the wind to crank up Friday night with gusts potentially reaching 55 mph, followed by rain and strong winds Saturday. That’s not exactly ideal baseball weather.  

There is another complication. Both teams are headed to the postseason, and waiting until Monday could interfere with preparations for playoff games beginning Tuesday.

So baseball may do something much more dramatic.

Get on an airplane.

The Cubs are reportedly planning to fly to St. Petersburg after Friday night’s game, while Tropicana Field crews are preparing for everything from security and concessions to ticketing and neutral-site branding.  

Why is a nor’easter causing so much trouble?

A nor’easter is a powerful coastal storm that gets its name from the strong northeasterly winds that can batter the Northeast as the storm develops offshore.

And despite the mental picture of snowplows and people shoveling sidewalks, a nor’easter does not have to produce snow.

This one is primarily a wind-and-rain problem for Boston.

The timing is interesting, too. We associate the biggest nor’easters with winter, but they can occur outside the traditional cold-weather months. Late September is essentially an atmospheric changing of the guard, with summer warmth still lingering while stronger fall weather systems begin arriving.

In other words, the calendar says September.

The atmosphere doesn’t particularly care.

Baseball has been chased away by weather before

If the game moves, Tropicana Field won’t exactly be new to emergency baseball duty.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey forced an Astros-Rangers series out of Houston and into Tropicana Field. Other MLB games have been relocated because of hurricanes and even snow.

That’s what makes this weekend such a great reminder of something easy to forget while watching sports.

We build stadiums, print schedules and sell tickets months in advance.

Then the atmosphere gets a vote.

This weekend, it may cast that vote about 1,300 miles from Fenway Park.

And if Red Sox and Cubs fans suddenly find themselves watching Game 162 underneath the dome in St. Pete, they’ll have a September nor’easter to thank for one of baseball’s strangest road trips.

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