Fans in disbelief as Bhutanese kids swing for the fences: "It looks fake"

Bhutan, a small nation in the Himalayas between Tibet and India, has a group of kids waiting under the 177-foot-tall Great Buddha Dordenma statue. These three people are wearing gloves. The person in the front swings a bat as they watch another child throw a ball. Baseball is being played on a concrete slab in front of the monument.

Bhutan, a nation of around 700,000 people, is now known to the globe thanks to a recent piece by Michael Clair on MLB.com. According to Matthew DeSantis, a co-founder of the organization, the number of children participating in the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association has increased from a few dozen to roughly 6,000.

According to MLB, Bhutan's traditional sports include archery and darts. The nation didn't have considerable access to television or the internet until 1999 or 2000. Baseball is not widely known, but a Baseball league started working to alter that. After the league began, 600–700 children began attending each event.

Fans comment on Bhutanese children playing baseball and call it "artistic AI." Some of the reactions are mentioned below.

A fan's reaction

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A fan's reaction

Introduction of Baseball to Bhutan

DeSantis, the co-founder, and chairman of the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association, opted to settle permanently in Bhutan after spending his first three weeks trekking through the country's vast southern forests and staying in roadless villages.

DeSantis first met Karma Dorji, the current president of the baseball association, while working for a digital firm and on the abundant tourism company MyBhutan, which assisted tourists in seeing the area. Dorji "had a strong passion for bringing sports to the kids and making it accessible and free," according to DeSantis.

However, they had no grand plans to form a baseball association: DeSantis picked up the game in America, and Dorji fell in love while attending the World Children's Baseball Fair in Japan. The two adored baseball and wanted to share it with the kids living near Thimphu's military barracks.

But they had to get by with what they had. They needed to host it in a central area so that all the youngsters who wanted to play could because locating huge open fields in the mountainous environment is challenging. That indicated that Bhutan baseball started on a big concrete slab.

The ultimate objective is to introduce baseball to all 20 districts and create a national team to compete with neighboring nations like Pakistan and India. Already, there has been significant advancement, with the Middle East and Southeast Asia's forthcoming Baseball United league, backed by former MLB players like Barry Larkin and Félix Hernández, has formally joined with the Bhutan Baseball and Softball Association.