The UAE has just about anything you could want, but I am not at all sure that, in the whole country, we have a mechanized batting cage.

And I feel like taking a few swings about now.

Maybe it is a sign of arrested adolescence, but more than once in a while I will be standing around, doing nothing in particular, and I find myself going through a throwing motion (and snapping off an imaginary curve ball) … or looking over my left shoulder as I hold an imaginary bat, one fist on top of the other, about chest high.

Why? Because I played a lot of baseball as a kid, from just tossing around a ball to over-the-line to actual organized baseball. And maybe some spot deep in my brain associates pleasure with baseball movements.

I know I should throw a ball little or not at all, because it would certainly lead to arm/shoulder pain — not having thrown anything in years.

And I probably shouldn’t get into a batting cage (were one available) because the idea of the torque involved in swinging at a baseball coming at me at even 60 or 70 miles per hour … well, I’d have an oblique injury after my second or third swing.

Still, I would go to a batting cage, if I knew where to find one, on this side of the world. With the mechanical thrower at one end of a narrow alley, and me holding a bat (and that would be hard to find, too), waiting to hit a round ball squarely.

I just searched “UAE batting cage” and what came up were the nets you see around baseball teams — all closed off, but it requires someone to pitch.

I want one where a dumb machine chucks a ball at me every 10 seconds or so, making me many dollars poorer but happy to relive the experience.

If I don’t hurt myself too badly.