Cincinnati Reds great Barry Larkin brings baseball to the Middle East, with camels carting in relief pitchers from the bullpen

Now that it’s built, one question remains: Will the fans come?

That’s the challenge facing the inaugural season of Baseball United, a month-long, four-team tournament that began Friday at the new Barry Larkin Stadium.

Named after an investor who was a former Cincinnati Reds player, it has the dimensions of a field at New York’s Yankee Stadium, and is covered with artificial turf for the blazing UAE sun.

The Professional League seeks to benefit from the sporting rivalry between India and Pakistan and the large number of expatriates in the Emirates. On Friday, Mumbai Cobras played Karachi Monarchs. Each team includes Indian and Pakistani players seeking to break into the football and cricket-saturated broadcasting market in this part of the world.

And despite the lack of big-name players from Major League Baseball, the league has put in place some new rules to speed up games and put more points on the board — likely to interest American fans as the regular season winds down there.

“People here have to learn the rules anyway, so if we’re starting from scratch, why not introduce some new rules that we think will interest them right from the start,” Kash Sheikh, CEO and co-owner of the United Baseball team, told The Associated Press.

Dune of dreams

The season ends in mid-December and all games will be held at the United Baseball team’s stadium in an area known as Al-Wad Al-Bayda, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The stadium is located alongside The Sevens Stadium, which hosts the annual Rugby Sevens tournament known for its hardcore fans drinking illicit alcohol and wearing costumes.

The stadium has a capacity of around 3,000 spectators and will host most matches at night, although the weather is starting to cool in the UAE with the change of season. But environmental concerns were taken into account – the United Baseball team chose an artificial field to avoid the challenge of using more than 45 million liters (12 million gallons) of water annually to maintain a natural grass field, John B. said. Medrich, co-founder and executive vice president of the league.

“We had to fly clay in from the United States, and we had to fly clay in from Pakistan” for the pitcher’s mound, he added.

Besides the Cobras and Kings, the inaugural league also includes the Wolves of the Arabian Peninsula from Dubai and the Middle East Falcons from Abu Dhabi.

The changes to the traditional game at Baseball United put a different spin on the game similar to how Twenty20 dramatically accelerated traditional cricket. Major League Baseball introduced the golden “money ball” that gives managers three opportunities per game to use the bat to double the number of home runs scored. A similar “fireball” automatically ends the inning if the pitcher strikes out.

Teams may call “designated runners” three times during the game. If the match is tied after nine rounds, the two teams face off in a derby at home to determine the winner.

“It’s entertaining and exciting, and it helps attract new fans and younger fans to get more involved in the game,” Sheikh said.

America’s pastime has had limited success

Baseball in the Middle East has had mixed success, which puts a positive spin on the ball.

American fans launched the Israeli Professional Baseball League in 2007, which consists almost entirely of foreign players. However, it folded after one season. The Americans spread the game to pre-revolution Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over the decades, although it was dwarfed by soccer. Saudi Arabia, through the Americans at the oil company Aramco, sent teams to the Little League World Series.

But football remains a favorite in the Middle East, which hosted the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Then there is cricket, the biggest sporting passion in India and Pakistan. The International Cricket Council, the world’s governing body, is headquartered in Dubai near the city’s cricket stadium.

The organizers know they have their work cut out for them. At one point during a news conference Thursday, they went over the basics of baseball — home runs, organ music, where center field is located.

“The most important part is the experience of the fans who come out and eat the hot dogs and see the mascots running around, to see the baseball traditions that we all grew up with back home in the States — and start to fall in love with the game because we know that once they start learning it, they’re going to be big fans,” Sheikh said.

On Friday night, attracting fans to the stadium appeared to be a challenge, as workers on buses filled one section of seats after receiving a free Karachi Monarch T-shirt, snacks and water.

However, they cheered along with other more experienced and somewhat intoxicated baseball fans and took selfies as the cheerleaders performed between innings. Available beer costs more than $13, which is expensive relative to the workers’ salary, which can amount to a few hundred dollars a month.

The first pitch of the game saw the Monarchs’ Pavin Parks hit a home run. The “Fireballs” saw the top and bottom of the seventh and the top of the eighth in one fell swoop, speeding throughout the game as the crowd dwindled. Parks hit the ninth inning “moneyball” home run, his first of the game. The Kings won 6-4.

In a nod to its desert environs, each team’s starting marksmen entered the match on camels.

“Thirty years in the game and I’ve never seen a camel in the bullpen,” Monarchs pitching coach Frank Gonzalez said. “I kinda like it though.”