Right now, everything seems to be at a standstill. In fact, the hot stove season is pretty quiet, with the hottest pan on the round being the one that ties Kenta Maeda to the Detroit Tigers.
A real blockbuster… or not.
That said, elsewhere in the baseball world, there is something very interesting happening overseas. In fact, in the last days, the league Baseball United launched its activities in Asia and the Middle East.
What does Baseball United eat in winter? Let’s have some of that.
In July 2022, the project to create a baseball league in Asia and the Middle East was launched. In order to give credibility to the project, Mariano Rivera and Barry Larkin joined forces and since then, four franchises have been set up: the Mumbai Cobras, the Karachi Monarchs, the Dubai Wolves and the Abu Dhabi Falcons.
Why does this league attract attention? In fact, the first reason came during the inaugural draft, when several names well known to MLB fans were selected. We are talking, among others, about Didi Gregorius, Andrelton Simmons, Robinson Cano, Pablo Sandoval and, above all, Bartolo Colon.
There are others, but these are the big names that have caught the attention.
And before launching its activities with its four franchises, the league decided to hold a showcase of its best talents in Dubai at the end of the week. Since yesterday, the best players in the league face each other in a duel East vs West to try to pique the interest of local people.
Yesterday, for example, it was up to good old Bartolo to start the league activities… and he had a nice 1-2-3 inning to kick things off. For a 50-year-old guy, he didn’t do too badly, pitching three innings and allowing just two runs.
And what we notice is that the guys are having fun. Yesterday, for example, Gregorius hit a ball over the fence, and Colon didn’t hesitate to tell him that he should do a little more strength training.
I like this.
However, the other interesting feature of the league on a sporting level is the introduction of “Moneyball” at-bats. These are at-bats where RBIs count double, so a grand slam would be worth eight runs.
So that’s how Pablo Sandoval hit a six-run homer today.
More details to come…
