Million Dollar (Indian) Arms

Many of you all may have already read about this (I'm sure Sky and Frank were on top of this ages ago) but it's a pretty cool story so I'll pass it along to our vast readership.

"The Million Dollar Arm" is an Indian reality TV show where 30,000 contestants competed to throw strikes at 85+ mph. The prizes were a $100K prize with a trip to the US to train and try out in front of MLB scouts for a shot at a major league contract. The show/contest was sponsored by a SoCal sports management company to try and find untapped baseball talent in a hugely populous country. The two guys that ended up winning, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, both threw javelin in India and had never picked up a baseball prior to this contest.

Anyways, these guys were both just signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates to minor league deals! Whether it's more smart baseball management move or marketing ploy/ merchanidising opportunity I can't say, but good for them! And... they have a pretty hilarous blog that they've been maintaining during their trip to the US. Their humility, excitement, and unique cultural perspective makes for some real funny entries. Here are some of my favorite lines from their blog:

"Tonight we were celebrating the Halloween Holiday here in America. we are not sure what the holiday comes from, but kids dress up in all kinds of crazy outfits and then go to houses asking for sweets. if people in the house no give the sweets then the kids put toilet paper in their trees."

"The American Football players are so big and have such huge muscles you would not even believe it. Each time they hit each other we are told it is like being in a car accident. These men hit each other many times per match. praise Allah that we have won a baseball contest and a not a football one. i don’t think we could even take a hitting once."

"We went with JB sir to breakfast at a great American breakfast eatery called Dennys. Rinku ordered a breakfast aclled the Lumberjack. We now know that a Lumberjack is a person who works as a tree cutter in the forrest so they must eat a lot of food. this breakfast was quite huge. It had eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, potatos, breads, and pancakes. I had French Toast and both meals were very fulfilling."

"Monday our greatest dream is coming to us. We both get contract to play pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. We are so happy and excited it is unreal. We are thanking the Pirates and will work very hard to make them proud of our results. We right away went to the internet to locate Pittsburgh on map. It is in north east part of USA and looks like very good city."

There's a lot more, so go read it for yourselves. Congrats Rinku and Dinesh, hope to see you on the field for the Pirates some day!