Rinku Singh, 19 year old son of an Indian truck driver, in India, has won the ‘Million Dollar Arm Hunt’, a talent event to find the fastest baseball pitcher in India, and a trip to train in the US. [TOI Sports] (tip Runa via email)

Roger Clemens who?
Make room for winner Rinku Bhramdeen Singh, left, and runner up Dinesh Kumar Patel, right
img: via Yahoo

Rinku won from a field of over 30,000 contestants in 30 cities by throwing a fastball at 89 mph. To put things in perspective, the fastest recorded pitch ever is around 101 mph. Another 20 year old, Dinesh Kumar Patel, was runner-up.

Both will undergo a year of intensive baseball training in San Francisco with a shot at a major league contract. For long desis in the US have complained of almost zero representation in professional sports, because of it being a non-traditional field for desis. If this experiment is successful, it will open up a new talent pipeline for major league baseball, India. [Little India]

Jeff Bernstein, of Seven Figures, who represents the baseball star Barry Bonds, and is behind the contest told the London Times: “We noticed the Major League teams were going through tons of pitchers and never finding the talent, so we decided to look outside the country. We surveyed the world . . . and immediately thought of India. Everyone who grew up with a cricket ball in their hand has a chance of translating.”

Cricket talent parlaying their success to find opportunities in professional baseball. How come no one ever thought of that previously? Is MLB going the route of the H1B visa? Stay tuned.

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