‘Pigs Across the Pond: IronPigs Get to Experience London with the Phillies

By: Sam Jellinek

The timing was pretty serendipitous for David Dahl and Weston Wilson. Both had just finished up playing their best baseball of the year during a road trip against the Columbus Clippers, and now both were getting their call-ups of the season to Philadelphia on June 3.

Their travel would take them from Columbus back to Lehigh Valley and then on a quick drive to Philadelphia to join the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. Less than a week later, they found themselves of all places in London, England.

Along with Dahl and Wilson, 2024 IronPigs Rafael Marchan, Darick Hall, and Nick Nelson, got to join the Phillies right ahead of their trip to London for the London Series against the New York Mets. While Dahl and Wilson were on the active roster, Marchan, Hall, and Nelson were on the ‘taxi squad’, depth in case someone got hurt.

No matter if they were active or not, the players had the time of their lives playing in one of MLB’s crown jewel events. Started in 2019 and then resumed in 2023, the London Series takes two MLB teams and throws them across the pond, helping expand America’s pastime globally. For 2024, the series was between the Phillies and Mets and was played at the London Stadium, home of West Ham United.

At the start of the season, Kody Clemens and Wilson had the series circled on their calendars, hoping to join the Phillies to make the trip: “When Kody and I first got here this season, we both said let’s do everything we can to get on this trip to London. Fortunately, I was able to. I actually went there on a vacation with my wife in December, so to go back in a better month weather wise was nice. Got to experience the city a little bit and play in front of a ton of fans,” Wilson said.

The experience of a lifetime began even before the players got to London, as the Phillies take a super-sized jumbo jet over the Atlantic Ocean, ensuring everyone would be flying in comfort. Everyone got full lay-down accommodations on the flight, that was taken overnight so as the team could wake up in the morning in London. Well the flight itself was easy, Nick Nelson said it didn’t get off to the best start: “We sat on the runway for like two hours with air conditioning. We had to wait for the plane to charge up, but no AC to start was killer.”

While the Phillies scheduled the flight so that everyone would be sleeping overnight, Nelson wasn’t the most successful in that endeavor.

“I got maybe an hour-and-a-half of sleep,” Nelson said. “I told the flight attendant to wake me up when breakfast was ready, but after only an hour or so she wakes me up, and I immediately regretted that decision.”

Once they got boots on the ground in London however, no matter how little sleep they had, it was time to explore.

“I walked around with bullpen catcher Hector Rabago, to explore a little bit,” Nelson explained. “Experiencing pub culture was great. Seeing how everyone just hangs out outside was very cool.”

Some of the cultural differences took Nelson by surprise like how everyone goes out on Thursday night versus the weekend. But of all the things he came away impressed by, it was the food: “The burgers over there were magnificent. Best burger I’ve ever had. I had a sausage roll as well, and HP sauce, which was a little weird. The burger, definitely had me blown away though.”

Thanks to the condensed schedule of events and practice leading up the actual games, the players didn’t have much time to truly explore. But, that meant that they were forced to spend time at the soccer stadium turned ballpark, which left them blown away.

“We looked it up, and without the extra seating they put in, the stadium holds around 80,000. It was crazy, it was a monstrous stadium and they did a great job of turning it into a baseball field,” Nelson noted.

“I was able to take in that we were playing in this massive stadium where soccer is played, the Olympics as well. It was interesting walking in there, knowing it seating 80 or 90,000 people. When we walked out there soccer style for the game and I looked around and thought, wow there may actually be that many people in here. How small everyone looked in deep center, very cool how many Phillies fans came as well,” Wilson said. “Standing on that line, seeing how many fans come from London to support us was really cool.”