From dust and dirt to a ballpark in 38 days - Baseball United begin a new era in Dubai

The inaugural Arab Classic saw Pakistan beat UAE in championship match at The Sevens

The chairman, CEO and co-founder of Baseball United Kash Shaikh, far right, poses with the UAE national team. Photo: Baseball United

An ambitious new era for baseball in the region was showcased at The Sevens in Dubai at the weekend.

The four-day Baseball United Arab Classic ended with undefeated Pakistan running out 12-1 winners against the UAE after a nine-team competition that also included national sides from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Palestine, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

And, providing an impressive home for the latest addition to the UAE's ever-expanding sporting roster, was the newly constructed Baseball United Ballpark, a venue completed from scratch in less than six weeks.

The ballpark is measured out in line with New York's Yankee Stadium, with the same dimensions as that world-famous venue in the Bronx: 318m down the left field line, 408m down centre field, 314m right field.

Kash Shaikh, chairman, chief executive and co-founder of Baseball United, believes that the ballpark not only made history due to it being the first such facility in the region but also because of the record time it was built in.

“It was all dust and dirt 38 days ago and here we are staging the inaugural Baseball United Arab Classic with nine national teams in action,” Shaikh told The National.

“No one has built a field like that in such a short period of time. We did that because we really wanted the first players who played on the field to be national team players.

“We enabled this tournament to come to life for the first time.”

Shaikh, an American born to a Pakistani mother and Indian father, believes the construction of a baseball facility like this in Dubai will be crucial in helping develop the sport at grass roots. “We spent a lot of money on it and a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into building it, so we hope that we can have multiple events here,” he added.

The second edition of the Baseball United Cup is slated for February 22 to March 1, with four franchises – Mumbai Cobras, Karachi Monarchs, Arabia Wolves and Mideast Falcons – competing in an event that marks four decades of the sport in Dubai.

“We'll announce a Riyadh team as well in March but before that and after that we want to have many national tournaments,” Shaikh said.

“We're already in talks with some of the best professional leagues in the world so that they can come play here for exhibitions. We hope to put this field to a lot of use.”

Baseball United staged their first professional franchise tournament at the Dubai Cricket Stadium last year but with so much cricket going on it became a hard task for Shaikh to schedule their calendar.

“We spent this year building the infrastructure as there is no facilities at all for baseball here,” he said.

“We had to build the whole infrastructure, the whole ecosystem, the facilities, the sponsorships, the partnerships, the broadcast and the government partnerships.

“We have been working on all that and now in 2025, we'll be doing these events mostly here because we built this field, but we'll be inviting teams from around the region and around the world.

“We brought the best partners in the world to build the ballpark, with the lighting, the netting, everything. Now we have a professional field and that in itself is a massive opportunity.”

Shaikh is supporting the Dubai Little League and works with the local community to create training programmes and curriculums as well as taking the sport to schools.

“The Dubai Little League is one of the best little leagues in the world. They do a great job. So, our focus is on trying to get more people in that little league,” he said when asked if the Ballpark would also be used as an academy to spread the sport among children.

“I'm really focused at the government level here in Dubai, the government in Abu Dhabi, hopefully embracing baseball because they've seen what we've done.

“And then supporting us at the school level, at the federal level, hopefully in the future, because we funded everything ourselves. We built everything ourselves. We marketed ourselves.

“More people are talking about Dubai in baseball circles around the world than ever in history. Everyone that knows anything about baseball knows Baseball United.

“Obviously as you know, baseball is America's crown jewel sport, America's pastime, it's a 150-year-old sport. Now, we have exported that here to the UAE.

“The eyes of America are on the UAE and the region, which is great for business, it's great for tourism.”