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I was reading the Sports section (big surprise) the other day and came across an article titled, “Indian Hurlers’ Inking Opens New Market”. Being that I am fascinated with how people in other countries outside the U.S. learn how to play baseball, I couldn’t resist a quick read of the article. To my recollection I couldn’t think of any India-born baseball players in Major League Baseball. For good reason, there are none. It’s no secret that athletes in Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, and Cuba, take learning how to play baseball seriously, but India? Turns out the Pittsburgh Pirates think differently about talent pools and recruiting. It all started with an idea from promoter and marketing guru, JB Bernstein, to see what type of baseball talent could be found in India. He came up with the idea of a large-scale contest open to boys between the ages of 16-21 in India. The parameters were quite simple, actually: see who could throw a baseball for a strike at 85mph or faster. Two friends, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel were among the 37,000 hurlers to come and participate in the contest. The fascinating part of this story is that neither of the young men (Singh 20, Patel 19) had ever learned how to play baseball before. In fact, neither of them had ever heard of the game of baseball! Both come from very poor villages and as far as they were concerned, the United States was a country they had just read about here and there. After all was said and done with the contest, Singh ended up beating out his friend for the $1,000 prize money throwing more strikes in the low 90’s (from the left-hand side). Patel hit 93 on the radar gun. Taken for their sheer number value, these numbers are nothing out of the ordinary for pitchers who devote their lives to learning how to play baseball and pitch at high levels. But keep in mind that neither of these guys had ever picked up a baseball before. To make a long-story short for the purpose of this article, (I would encourage you to read this amazing story for yourself) the Pirates signed both of the hurlers to professional contracts. They are now learning how to play baseball, and more specifically, pitch, from Tom House in Southern California. Quite an amazing feel good story. It will be fun to watch these two coming up this next season.
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