The great American pastime found in the meadows of France?

SÉNART, France — The world’s greatest athletes recently competed on sports’ greatest stage as dozens of other competitors were anonymously toiling a short distance away in one of their sport’s ultimate backwaters.  

A handful of Americans and other diamond globetrotters are among these long-shot dreamers and admitted hangers-on in a most unlikely baseball setting — the meadows of France, a few long balls away from where the Olympics just wrapped and captured the national imagination.

“I wasn’t ready to hang it up,” catcher and former Las Vegas resident Yodai Nakamura told NBC News after a recent game for his Les Templiers de Sénart (roughly translated as the Sénart Knights), who play their home games about 30 miles south of the Arc de Triomphe. “I had no idea baseball was played here [before signing].”

Most baseball fans were probably stunned to learn their sport even existed in France before the San Francisco Giants added relief pitcher Spencer Bivens to their 26-man roster on June 16.

Bivens’ arrival in San Francisco brought to light his incredible journey to the bigs, which came with a detour to France, a nation better known for its soccer, basketball, tennis, rugby, cycling, swimming or just about any other sport not named “baseball.”

“[Bivens’ promotion] was kind of hard to believe, right?” said Vermont native Owen Ozanich, manager and occasional relief pitcher for Les Barracudas de Montpellier.

“A lot of the younger French guys aspire to go play in the U.S. but the foreign players mostly see this as like the end of their career or maybe their last chance.”

It’s believed Bivens is the first player from France’s Division Élite, the nation’s top-flight baseball league, to play big league ball since Jeff Zimmerman, who pitched for the Texas Rangers from 1999 to 2001.

“[Bivens’ call-up] was an inspiration, especially for the younger guys,” said Nakamura, whose baseball journey includes stops at Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas, Cochise College in Arizona, Williston State College in North Dakota, Fresno City College and Kansas Wesleyan University.

“I’m 27. OK for me, I’m hanging on. But for these younger guys, you know, it shows anything’s possible. Work on your craft, work on your game and it’s possible.”

Games here are only played on the weekends with local French players holding day jobs.

Imported players can make anywhere from 600 euros to 1,000 euros ($650 to $1,085) a month, with many of their expenses, such as rent, phone service and gym membership, taken care of by the club.

Houston native Jonathan Mottay, a pitcher for Cougars de Montigny-le-Bretonneux, is married with a child and is fully settled in France, selling Lynk & Co. cars Monday through Friday.

Putting on a uniform on the weekends and competing is good enough for the 30-year-old.

“I still have friends back in the States and they had to stop at 25 because there’s no team,” Mottay said. “I mean there are Sunday leagues but it’s not like here, where you have the imports, local young guys and a fairly good level of play.”

Some of the fields here in France, such as Templiers Stadium, can resemble high-quality, small college facilities, while others look like rock-filled, uneven rec leagues diamonds.

Another jarring image to American baseball fans is the sight of players regularly stepping out of their dugouts for a smoke break.

“It’s cultural,” said Iván Acuña, manager of Lions de Savigny de-sur-Orge, smiling and shaking his head. “The funny part about it here is, it’s normal. I’ve been trying really hard to get the guys to stop, just for my love to them. And I’ve got a couple guys to stop smoking and they’re doing vape. It’s not better, but at least it doesn’t smell as bad.”

Acuña, a Venezuelan who played college baseball at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory, North Carolina and Winston-Salem State University, also in North Carolina, was Bivens’ catcher with the Lions in 2019.

He fondly recalls staying up to watch Bivens’ first Major League Baseball game in the middle of the night in France.

“I remember his spirit and just being a fun guy to be around,” Acuña said of Bivens. “I feel amazing that he made it, and the fact that he’s a guy who came through a totally different path.”

That MLB path is still a distant dream for Bakersfield, California native Jalen Smith, who suffered a broken hand that prematurely ended what was going to be a monster senior season last year at UC San Diego.

“Draft day came and draft day left and I didn’t get any calls,” Smith said.

Even if Smith, 24, never plays baseball at a level higher than France, the infielder is still happy with what’s he’s doing now.

“I didn’t get drafted so I thought I was just going to get a regular job,” said Smith, who plays for Huskies de Rouen.

“But I’m excited that this happened. I mean, it’s a great life experience that I’ll never be able to do again: Live here for multiple months without paying much. I’m getting basically everything for free and I’m getting paid to play baseball as well. So, I mean, it’s a dream.”

Players in the French league hit, run and pitch with a high degree of anonymity, with crowds that can be counted on your hands. Even if the audiences are sparse, Nakamura couldn’t care less.

“I don’t know if ‘weird’ is the right word, but at the end of the day, man, I’m still doing what I love to do,” he said. “So I can’t complain.”

Games are strictly friends-and-family events — and sometimes not even with many loved ones around.

The parents of Ozanich, the Vermont native, are French, so he has plenty of relatives in this nation.

And ever since here in 2011, the 35-year-old Ozanich has lobbied for his French relatives to come to a game. He’s mired in an 0-for-13-year slump.