Apr 10, 2013 5 min read

Abe Key, president of PONY Baseball/Softball, leaves today for Japan to attend the International Baseball Federation congress. Key was chosen by USA Baseball as its voting representative, one of the top honors a baseball administrator can be given.

One of the items on the agenda is designing a strategic plan to get baseball and softball back in the Olympic Games. The sports were dropped from the Olympic program after the 2008 Beijing Games.

No baseball in the Olympics? No big deal, you say. There’s plenty of baseball on television and at local ballparks and youth fields to satisfy one’s appetite for the game. You can probably go without watching minor leaguers and former major leaguers play baseball for two weeks every four summers. Olympic baseball is nothing more than the recent World Baseball Classic, only held in the summer, right?

That might be the outlook in the United States, but Key knows baseball, softball and the Olympics must be connected if the sports are to grow worldwide.

“The importance of baseball and softball as Olympic sports is critical,” Key said. “Having them in the Olympics means the survival of the sports in the vast number of baseball-playing countries. Here you have the infrastructure of youth leagues, high school, college and professional baseball. If baseball is not in the Olympics, for us in the United States, it’s not a major impact. But for the rest of the world, it’s critical. In countries that have Olympic committees, those committees only fund Olympic sports.”

One country that can use government funding of its baseball programs is Pakistan. And two of its baseball officials were in Washington Tuesday afternoon to discuss with Key how to grow the game, and how to fund and build fields, in their country. Syed Fakhar Ali Shah, executive director of Pakistan Federation Baseball, and Muhammad Zubair, finance secretary, spoke of baseball’s growing popularity.

Shah’s father, Khawar Shah, as director of sports in Pakistan, introduced the country to baseball after seeing it in the 1992 Olympics. Since then, baseball has grown to become the second-most popular sport in the country, behind only cricket, a sport that has the same stick-and-ball principles as baseball.

“And we don’t even have a baseball field in the country,” Shah said. “We play on cricket and soccer fields. The government is now requiring that baseball be taught in schools. It’s saying that if a school wants to have a license, then it has to teach baseball in physical education classes.”

PONY Baseball/Softball currently has Pony (13- and-14-year-olds) and Bronco (11-12) level teams in Pakistan, which is part of the organization’s Asia-Pacific Zone. Last year, PONY sent a sea container filled with used equipment – most of it looked like new, Shah said – to Pakistan that was distributed in 10 cities.

“In PONY’s existence, we’ve helped about 20 countries with developing the game from scratch,” Key said. “It started with the Philippines in the late 1960s and most recently has included Pakistan, Serbia and the Czech Republic. We’ve sent people, in conjunction with Major League Baseball’s Envoy Program, to those countries to teach their coaches.”

The teaching has been effective enough that Pakistan is currently No. 23 in the world baseball rankings and No. 6 in the Asia region. One of its pitchers, who has a 93 mph fastball, was spotted by a Minnesota Twins scout at a tournament and offered a minor-league contract. The player had to decline the offer because of his military obligation.

Baseball is even shown on television in Pakistan through ESPN’s SportsCenter highlights.

Softball also is growing in popularity, too, and it has something going for it in this Muslim country that sports such as soccer do not – all women can play.

“Pakistan is the second-largest Muslim country, and 30 percent of the country is strict Muslim, which says women’s bodies must be covered to play sports. They can’t play soccer because of the shorts,” Shah pointed out. “A softball uniform, however, covers you from head to toe, so all women can play.”

Shah said baseball players in Pakistan, if they are good enough, can get a free education – similar to a college scholarship – and earn as much as $300 a month.

“People in Pakistan have been playing cricket for 50 years, and it’s a bat-and-ball game, too. But in cricket, there can be times when there’s not a lot of movement. Baseball has a lot of running and hitting. It’s a faster game,” Shah said. “You can’t help but notice the happiness on the faces of the parents who watch their children play. Baseball builds confidence, and it keeps kids off the streets and away from bad activities.”

Added Key, “And that goes back to the original motto of PONY Baseball: Protect Our Neighborhood Youth.”