Baseball Comes to India

[Outshined_One]

Found this nifty article earlier today. There are pictures in the comments.

 

Link

 

Rinku, along with another Indian youngster Dinesh Kumar Patel (20), will fly to the US on Saturday to be trained by prominent international trainers and scouts.

 

They were both selected in a nationwide competition which saw the participation of 30,000 young men from 30 major cities.

 

Rinku, who can throw ball at over 89 mph and was adjudged the fastest thrower in the 'Million Dollar Arm Hunt' launched in December by an American sport firm, was on Friday felicitated by US Ambassador David C Mulford.

[Guest]

Cricket is far too huge, but there are inroads to be made (especially when you're offering $1 million!) in a country with 1.1 billion people.

 

That'd be great if one of those kids gets a contract, it would help the sport big time in India.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yep. There is a LOT of similarity in cricket and baseball, and while I enjoy both, there's not going to be too much room for both as major sports in a single country/culture.

[Guest]

Australia already has an MLB academy and has produced a few significant MLB prospects and UDFA signings while being on top of the cricket world. And that's in a country with 20 million people. There is a lot to be gained in going to a country with the population of India and it'd be easier to make the bridge to baseball in a cricket-rich nation than, say, soccer-rich European nations. It'd take quite a bit of work in the early going with minimal success but the results might be worth it down the road. All the while, the infrastructure is more sound than some of the other frontiers MLB is looking into.

[1908]

Cool. I remember seeing this mentioned somewhere. I read Searching for Tendulkar a few years ago, a book about four Americans' travels through India teaching baseball. Not the best book, the author and his friends come across as pretty boorish. But I do remember them talking about how quickly the kids picked up hitting and throwing a baseball.

[Guest]

http://eastwindupchronicle.com/looking-for-the-first-rabindranath-kofax/

 

http://eastwindupchronicle.com/still-looking-for-ramakrishna-maddux/

[wastra]

I actually lived in Hyderabad, India for over a year. While I was there, I ran into more than 1 American businessman looking to make inroads with baseball into the society.

 

But what is more likely- and what I was seeing right before i left india, was a movement to "baseball-ize" professional cricket there. Currently, there are few full-time "leagues" as there are here in America with MLB, just a national association repsonsible for organizing the Indian National team for international competition.

 

Lately, there has been a push for full-time professional leagues where stats are tracked and available on the internet setup more similar to a professional sports league in america with permanent teams and ongoing seasons rather than just regional teams trying to get its players qualified for the national team. Right now, there is no real effective centralized crickett organization to keep track of or organize anything.

 

I would be surprised, based on casual conversations I had there with interested persons, if ESPN doesn't have a hand (i.e. takes on the job of organizing it themselves for ESPN Asia) in developing a full-scale franchised Major League Crickett organization across EurAsia through the south pacific in the next decade. There's too much interest and too much money to be made for them to leave it as decentralized and unorganized as it is. It's going to need financing first, however...lots of it. the more organizaed crickett becomes, the easier it will be for baseball, with its obvious similarities, to make a deep impression there.

[UK1679666180]

Not to be negative, but 20yos throwing above 89 obviously isn't anything special in baseball terms.

 

I agree with cricket being a tough bridge to cross. China is next on the baseball map.

[Guest]

I actually lived in Hyderabad, India for over a year. While I was there, I ran into more than 1 American businessman looking to make inroads with baseball into the society.

 

But what is more likely- and what I was seeing right before i left india, was a movement to "baseball-ize" professional cricket there. Currently, there are few full-time "leagues" as there are here in America with MLB, just a national association repsonsible for organizing the Indian National team for international competition.

 

Lately, there has been a push for full-time professional leagues where stats are tracked and available on the internet setup more similar to a professional sports league in america with permanent teams and ongoing seasons rather than just regional teams trying to get its players qualified for the national team. Right now, there is no real effective centralized crickett organization to keep track of or organize anything.

 

I would be surprised, based on casual conversations I had there with interested persons, if ESPN doesn't have a hand (i.e. takes on the job of organizing it themselves for ESPN Asia) in developing a full-scale franchised Major League Crickett organization across EurAsia through the south pacific in the next decade. There's too much interest and too much money to be made for them to leave it as decentralized and unorganized as it is. It's going to need financing first, however...lots of it. the more organizaed crickett becomes, the easier it will be for baseball, with its obvious similarities, to make a deep impression there.

 

Financing has started coming from Bollywood (although, for now, it's making things far more confusing and less centralized).