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VIEW FROM THE GREEN

by Lawrence Brent

There's something to be said for following baseball in the Commonwealth. The cricket background makes the baseball arms of these clubs feel something fresh and new and truly part of a global sporting world, unlike cricket which was totally limited to these lands. You get traditions from all parts of the world, great local rivalries, and distinct divisions which means the title series is often a fantastic contrast in cities, crowds, flavors and colors.

The more orderly and test-cricket loving Wisden division is the one that is near and dear to my hear. It's full of the classic, proper British rivalry between Yorkshire and Surrey with the upstarts Leicestershire looking to challenge, you get the sports-mad Oceanic lands with Auckland, Melbourne and Perth and then you get the oddball West Indian side the Jamaica Tallawahs. I enjoy heading to the ground on a Saturday to see a Surrey-Yorkshire game more than anything else but a trip through Australia and New Zealand is always great: the joy, effort and good humor they give to the game, even when their Commonwealth teams haven't always measured up make for a great location for a visiting writer. The party in Jamaica always overshadows the game but that's great for one team out of eight.

Then you get the much more energetic Bengal division, spinning out of the T20 tradition with the Indian sides Mumbai Tigers, Delhi Daredevils and Chennai Super Kings with Pakistani sides Lahore Qalandars and Karachi Kings. With Mumbai, Lahore and Karachi you get essentially unrelenting pressure and expectations...every pitch seems to decide the title and the fans never ever let up. They are the best at cricket and simply now expect to be the best at baseball, and often are. Delhi is joining them, while Chennai remain a bit of a backwater where the game is at times dismissed as a distraction from the serious business of cricket. The African sides can seem a bit off the pace at times, and while I love the trip to Port Moresby, the field seems to lack conditioning and the overall program feels very minor league.

While the WBA claims to be a global league full of diversity but really we wind up seeing London, Sydney plus the big American cities. Yes Mexico City feels different and occasionally Lagos or Buenos Aires or somewhere, but they almost feel like they were picked out to show "Hey, we are global!" but only the Commonwealth can truly give you a global glimpse and feel.

While we don't have any truly dominant world teams, we have teams that can make noise in the European or Asian Cup and a Baseball Cup or Global Cup run comes along every few years to thrill the entire league into cheering for their representative. There is always room to try and reach the ceiling none have reached so far: a true international title or even a Champions League knockout stage, but no one here is really that concerned about it. We have enough to concern ourselves here watching the ebbs and flows of our league that reaching global heights would simply be a bonus.