Emerging like a mirage in the desert outskirts of Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), a sight unfamiliar to those in the Middle East and Asia has risen up like a dream in the exact dimensions of the field at Yankee Stadium in New York.
Now that it is built, though, one question remains: Will the fans come?
That is the challenge for the inaugural season of Baseball United, a four-team, month-long contest that began after press time last night at the new Barry Larkin Field, artificially turfed for the broiling sun of the UAE and named for an investor who is a former shortstop for MLB’s Cincinnati Reds.
Photo: AP
The new professional league seeks to draw on the sporting rivalry between India and Pakistan with two of its teams, as the Mumbai Cobras were to play the Karachi Monarchs last night. Each team have Indian and Pakistani players seeking to break into the broadcast market saturated by soccer and cricket in that part of the world.
While having no big-name MLB players, the league has created some of its own novel rules to speed up games and put more runs on the board — and potentially generate interest for US fans as the regular season there has ended.
“People here got to learn the rules anyway, so we’re like: If we get to start at a blank canvas, then why don’t we introduce some new rules that we believe are going to excite them from the onset,” Baseball United chief executive officer and co-owner Kash Shaikh told reporters.
Photo: AP
All the games in the season, which ends in the middle of next month, are to be played at Baseball United’s stadium out in the reaches of Dubai’s desert in an area known as Ud al-Bayda, about 30km from the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. The stadium sits alongside The Sevens Stadium, which hosts an annual rugby sevens tournament known for hard-partying fans drinking alcohol and wearing costumes.
As journalists met with Baseball United officials on Thursday, two fighter jets and a military cargo plane landed at the nearby al-Minhad Air Base, flying over a landfill.
The field seats about 3,000 fans and is to host games mostly at night, although the weather is starting to cool in the UAE as the season changes.
Environmental concerns have been kept in mind — Baseball United installed an artificial field to avoid the challenge of using more than 45 million liters of water a year to maintain a natural grass field, said John Miedreich, a cofounder and executive vice president at the league.
“We had to airlift clay in from the United States, airlift clay from Pakistan” for the pitcher’s mound, Miedreich said.
There are four teams competing in the inaugural season. Joining the Cobras and the Monarchs are the Arabia Wolves, Dubai’s team, and the Mideast Falcons of Abu Dhabi.
There are changes to the traditional game in Baseball United, putting a different spin on the game similar to how the T20 format drastically sped up traditional cricket. The baseball league has introduced a golden “moneyball,” which gives managers three chances in a game to double the runs scored off a home run.
Teams can call in designated runners three times during a game. And if a game is tied after nine innings, the teams face off in a home run derby to decide the winner.
“It’s entertainment and it’s exciting, and it’s helping get new fans and young fans more engaged in the game,” Shaikh said.
Baseball in the Middle East has had mixed success, to put a positive spin on the ball. A group of American supporters launched the professional Israel Baseball League in 2007, comprised almost entirely of foreign players, but it folded after just one season.
Americans spread the game in prerevolution Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, although it has been dwarfed by soccer. Saudi Arabia, through the Americans at its oil company Aramco, has sent teams to the Little League World Series.
However, soccer remains a favorite in the Middle East, which hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Then there is cricket, which remains a passion in India and Pakistan.
The International Cricket Council, the world’s governing body for the sport, has its headquarters in Dubai, near the city’s cricket stadium.
Baseball United organizers know they have their work cut out for them. At one point during a news conference on Thursday, they went over baseball basics — home runs, organ music and where center field sits.
“The most important part is the experience for fans to come out, eat a hot dog, see mascots running around, to see what baseball traditions that we all grew up with back home in the US — and start to fall in love with the game because we know that once they start to learn those, they will become big fans,” Shaikh said.
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