Packed with European Flavor, Baseball United Looks to Grow in the Middle East

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By Jason Daniels, Guest Writer.

With the camel collapsed to its knees, Konsta Kurikka swung his legs over the saddle. The dromedary jerked up, carrying the Finn, his blonde mane, and baby-blue uniform out from the left field bullpen. Holding onto his seat, Kurikka waved to the crowd as photographers and drummers paved the way for Sunday night’s starting pitcher. Professional baseball had come to the Middle East, with Europe playing a central role.

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“I have the easy job,” Barry Larkin says of his role with Baseball United. The Hall of Fame shortstop and Baseball United’s brainchild leads a daring venture in Dubai – a place virtually devoid of baseball infrastructure and talent. In the baseball desert, there is no easy job.

Larkin anchors League ownership and doubles as the honorary GM for the Mumbai Cobras, one of four teams in the inaugural month-long season. Mid-way through Sunday’s game, during the opening weekend series, I find Larkin chumming behind the backstop, greeting fans and investors in his favorite Cobras jersey. The easy stuff.

For the past few decades, Larkin has been intimately involved in the game’s global growth. He has served as ambassador with MLB International and managed Brazil’s national team at the 2013 World Baseball Classic. At home, he is pushing to bring an MLB team to Orlando. With Baseball United, he is trying to tap into a market of two billion people on the Indian sub-continent.

So, how did we get here? How did players and coaches from around the world start coming to Dubai? Larkin takes me back to India. A decade ago, he visited as part of a baseball envoy for the U.S. State Department. He found cricketers, javelin throwers, and athletes with great potential. Why not, he thought, bring baseball here?

Penetration into India, however — with its cricket-mad culture — seemed a difficult task. So, Larkin turned to the UAE. He teamed up with fellow Hall of Famers Mariano Rivera and Adrián Beltré and former MLB stars like Albert Pujols, Elvis Andrus, and Robinson Canó.

Max Shaukat, a businessman who spearheaded professional cricket’s entrance into the North American baseball market, also joined — this time to achieve the reverse. In November of 2022, CEO Kash Shaikh pieced Larkin’s vision together and created Baseball United.

Shaikh, says Larkin, has the difficult job. The CEO features prominently in League media, in one video instructing his staff on execution: “Every detail matters. If somebody tells you differently, they never [deleted] built anything.” Before the season, he crowned his team as entrepreneurs. “You’re a different [deleted] animal now.”

If you did not know that Baseball United was about baseball, you would be forgiven for thinking Shaikh was opening a Michelin restaurant in Manhattan. During games, Shaikh is seen sneaking across the field, cutting through dugouts, greeting guests, and reorienting staff, all the while jawing into his walkie-talkie. Restaurant or not, the League requires critical ingredients to succeed: grit, a can-do attitude, and an international helping hand. Europeans, for one, have been happy to help.

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Not long ago, Konsta Kurikka, too, saw baseball opportunity. Growing up in Finland, he was first drawn to pesäpallo, the national sport that shares similarities with baseball. After five years competing in Finland’s professional league, however, he felt ready for a new challenge. “I threw hard,” he says, “so baseball was an opportunity. I’m happy that I did that because I’ve been traveling a lot.”

He ventured across Europe to play in the German and Spanish leagues. This past winter, he pitched for the Adelaide Giants in the Australian Baseball League, becoming the first Finnish-born professional baseball player.

Kurikka credits his Baseball United discovery to Mid-East Falcons manager, Dennis Cook, former manager of Sweden’s national team and current pitching coach. Baseball United reached out to Kurikka, emphasizing that they wanted a global roster — and that they wanted him here.

Sunday marked Kurikka’s third time playing with Baseball United. In 2023, he played in the League’s first showcase games and earlier this year he participated in the UAE exhibition series between the Mid-East Falcons and Arabia Wolves. For the inaugural season, Kurikka joined the Karachi Monarchs. His Sunday start against Mumbai began ominously by giving up a first-pitch homerun. A few more elevated fastballs found Cobra barrels. Fellow European Lou Helmig singled off Kurikka in the first to drive in another run.

Kurikka then settled in, showing promise with his firm fastball and biting breaking ball. In the second inning, he faced Helmig again, freezing the German first baseman on a 3-2 curve.

The 24-year-old Kurikka represents a nation coming to grips with its baseball potential. “There is no baseball culture in Finland,” he says. “That needs to change before we can get to a higher level.”

“They are working hard to get kids involved, and I hope my journey [encourages] people to start playing baseball and see the opportunity to travel the world. It’s going to take a bit of time, but I hope I can help with that.”

“I have a pretty good fan base in Finland,” he says, citing his pesäpallo connections. “They are excited about my journey. I think they will follow.”

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Baseball United ballpark rests a 30-minute drive outside downtown Dubai. Away from the smoggy air, dagger-like Burj Khalifa, and ubiquitous construction in the centre of the city, baseball is laying its own foundation.

Shaikh and his team have anchored their baseball hopes in a local sporting hub. In just 38 days, they constructed a baseball-specific facility at the tail end of a massive sports complex – home to Sevens Stadium rugby, football fields, and a slew of cricket pitches just beyond the ballpark gates.

I take the highway exit toward the ballpark and the first road-side banner I see is of Vinny Ahrens. The seasoned German catcher is, like Kurikka, also a Baseball United veteran. “Being around Hall of Famers and some of the most talented and experienced players and coaches in the world is an incredible honor, especially for a guy from Cologne, Germany,” he says.

A diverse crowd attended Opening Day on Friday night, including youth dance teams and expats eager to take in a familiar game. A couple thousand fans enjoyed a full baseball experience — if one with a Baseball United twist — camel entrances, ceaseless music, cheerleaders, brass bands in the bleachers, and pizza box races for fans around bases. Behind the field, fans were treated to a picnic-tabled beer garden, live batting cages, and face paint, with pies from Pizza Hut and Shake Shack hot dogs.

“Baseball United has done an incredible job marketing the league,” says Ahrens. “The field they built is amazing.”

The only worry Friday night is that one of the two camels – still sitting unprotected by the outfield bullpens – might get thumped by a foul ball.

Batters, after all, are swinging big. In an effort to bring more excitement and fan engagement to the ballpark, Baseball United introduced multiple quirks to its rules. Gold ‘moneyballs’ double the runs scored when a home run is hit, while red-dotted ‘fireballs’ can be used in defense, which immediately end an inning if the batter strikes out. An eight-run home run or 30-second inning — the latter of which occurred during the first week of play — grab headlines. Even when results are unspectacular, the new rules add tension and intensity to gameplay that make fans lean in.

“Seeing what the Baseball United team has pulled off here just makes you want to be a part of this,” says Ahrens.

“It’s just getting started,” he says, comparing Baseball United to other leagues he has played in, such as in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. “You’re not being drafted by a team that has a rich history of baseball — yet. It’s our job to put on a show and get the people in the region excited for this amazing sport.”

Ahrens, Kurikka, and Helmig are just a few in a deep group of European talent in Dubai. Other European countries represented include the Netherlands (Karim Ayubi, Franklin van Gurp, Calvin Maduro [coach], Gedionne Marlin, Juremi Profar, and Gillian Wernet), Poland (Dennis Cook [former manager], Dominik Grzecicha, John McLaren [former coach], Joe Pence, and Hubert Zgórzyński), Great Britain (Aaron Singh and Raul Shah), Sweden (Cook and Victor Vahlberg), Hungary (Sean Fekete), Israel (Alex Katz), Italy (Federico Celli), and Switzerland (Max Jung-Goldberg). [For more on the history-making Polish players and Fekete, see here.]

Shutaro Usui, while Japanese, has played in Austria and Germany. Africa, too, is featured across the rosters, with South Africa’s Christiaan Beyers, who also played in European leagues. Beyers has a regional connection, too, suiting up for Dhahran (Saudi Arabia) in the 2008 Little League World Series [link].

The European contingent is central to Baseball United’s push to transform fandom on the Indian sub-continent. “One billion of them are cricket fans,” Kash Shaikh points out. “If we can inspire just a small fraction of them to become baseball fans, then we can make a pretty significant community and commercial impact.”

“The challenge,” says Shaikh, “is we’ve got to teach them the game. They love it. They’ve seen it in Hollywood. They wear Yankees hats, but they don’t really know the game. And now they’re slowly starting to get it.”

Shaikh says there have been discussions both with local authorities and internationally to increase investment. “Not only UAE, but Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and back home in the States,” he says. The 20 MLB veterans who underwrite Baseball United give the League a strong foundation. “But we definitely want the local investment soon,” says Shaikh.

It takes just one sheikh (not to be confused with Shaikh), Barry Larkin suggests, for Baseball United to succeed. Leaders on the Arabian peninsula — from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the UAE — have spent big on sport in recent years (e.g., LIV golf, F1, NBA, football) to attract visitors and diversify economies. If Baseball United can demonstrate results – sustained attendance, viewership, and sponsorship – Larkin and Shaikh believe baseball is poised to be next.

The human capital, meanwhile, that Europe has invested in Baseball United is substantial and must be recognized. As Shaukat, the man who brought cricket stateside, says, the League needs to first deliver a quality product, then fans will come.  To that end, Baseball United requires a talented international cast to achieve its global vision. Players and coaches across five continents — including several from Pakistan and India — fill out team rosters.

Baseball United stands out for its collection of characters. That is a differentiator and source of engagement as the League taps into international audiences. And that rich variety applies from animated ownership to Hall of Fame investors to assorted players and coaches — all the way down to camels carrying pitchers to the mound so they can make their big entrance. In the baseball desert, any lift is welcome.

Other related articles:
Two Europeans on Baseball United’s Mid East Falcons’ Roster [link].
Baseball United’s Arabia Wolves Publicise Player List [link].