I swear, the early English grammarians did quite some damage calling the ej sound "long "a". I understand why they did that, but it really screws up any talk about comparing different languages: what pretty much everyone else calls "long "a" is the a:/ɑ: sound (or something very close to it) — which is actually long, compared to a/ɑ.

In the specific context of 'Basel', it's like "art", but I see your point.