American Missionaries Pitch Baseball in India’s Cricket Citadel

Is America's favorite pastime destined to become Asia's favorite as well? Maybe. Two American envoys are currently touring India in an effort to introduce baseball into India, a country where cricket is a national obsession and baseball is relatively unknown. In recent decades, baseball leagues have found a foot-hold in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and opened doors for profitable merchandizing opportunities for the American sport in Asia. Efforts to introduce the quintessentially American sport on a global scale give credence to claims of the globalization of American sports, guided solely by American capitalist interests. The American envoy refutes such claims, calling baseball a world sport. Given India's untapped consumer market – one that is available for merchandizing American baseball goods – proponents of baseball leagues in India will be hard pressed to argue that American capitalism is not intrinsically involved in the spread of American culture. – YaleGlobal