Great article. Two thoughts:
1. They have the scarcest, most-precious resource in youth sports: A pair of fanatically devoted organizers, in DeSantis and Dorji, who keep up promotion, organization, keep focus on a big audacious goal, and (seemingly) never say no to further asks that are made of them. I've seen the same dynamics in youth sports in so many other places, where
maintenance of existing popularity and continuity-of-play from year to year can be done by people of ordinary levels of motivation, but
growth, sport-evangelism, requires someone with a truly entrepreneurial amount of drive for it to really take off. Getting critical mass of participation, and keeping the money and equipment flowing, not to mention training coaches, preparing playing spaces, handling communication with everyone... it's a level of stress most people burn out from in a short amount of time, and that's if you ever get someone sufficiently committed in the first place. Volunteers who never burn out from the level of commitment that DeSantis and Dorji have maintained are as rare as hen's teeth. God bless 'em.
2. I fell down a wikipedia rabbit hole of reading about Bhutan a few months ago (starting from the question of "how the hell did they keep their independence during the unification of India?"). And while I'm neither an expert on Bhutan nor Buddhism, it strikes me that there is something very Buddhist, something very in keeping with Bhutan's national character, about baseball. First of all is how contemplative it is: you have so much time to just be out in nature, standing around, 90%+ of the time doing nothing. The conservation of focus, effort, energy, and the time it gives you to reflect, let your mind wander and then bring it back to focus as the pitch arrives, is rather meditative, as is the repeated practice of the same movements for each skill in the game. Second, the fact that, for lack of a better word, baseball happens in
moments - the delivery of a pitch, the swing of the bat, the ball is coming straight at you, you catch, you throw - you are put into a state of flow by the nature of the game, and must push aside discursive thoughts. Third, the search for excellence in the sport is very internally-driven, rather than deriving from the teamwork and mutual understanding required of basketball or soccer, much as Buddhism is about seeking awakening, greater awareness and clarity in one's own mind. When you're pitching, hitting, fielding, there is no one to help you in the moment: your control over your own body and mind, driven by repeated practice, is your only asset. Fourth, the fact that it's a non-contact sport, in a country that outsources its military to India and whose state religion is explicitly
pacifist, I'm sure helps things out. Please correct me if I'm out of line on any of this, but if not, there are probably some parallels to the spread of the sport in Japan, too.
Also, most of the inhabited parts of the country are at like 7000 - 8000' above sea level, so I bet the ball goes FAR when you really smack it. That's gotta add to the fun.
