The inaugural season of Baseball United, a four-team monthlong contest, began on Friday at the new Barry Larkin Field in Dubai.

The professional league seeks to draw on the sporting rivalry between India and Pakistan and their large number of expatriates in the Emirates. On Friday, the Mumbai Cobras played the Karachi Monarchs.

In a nod to Dubai's desert environment, the starting pitchers for each team came into the field on camels.

While the league has no big-name players from North America's Major League Baseball, it has created some of novel rules to speed up games and put more runs on the board — and potentially generate interest for U.S. fans as the regular season there has ended.

The baseball league has introduced a golden “moneyball” which gives managers three chances in a game to use an "at bat" to double the runs scored off a home run. A similar “fireball” automatically ends an inning if a pitcher strikes out a batter.

The game's first pitch saw Monarchs batter Pavin Parks hit a home run. “Fireballs" saw the top and the bottom of the seventh and the top of the eighth end with one strikeout, speeding along a game as the crowd thinned. Parks hit a ninth inning “moneyball” home run, the game's first. The Monarchs won 6-4.

“This game had everything, fireballs, money balls, designated runners, camels walking on the field, amazing crowd. We couldn't be more grateful," said Kash Shaikh, Baseball United CEO and co-owner.

The field seats some 3,000 fans and will host games mostly at night, though the weather is starting to cool in the Emirates as the season changes.

AP Video shot by Bassam Hartoum