Today was a landmark day for Major League Baseball and Indian athletes everywhere. Two amateur Indian “throwers”, for their background is in the javelin rather than baseball, signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The two soon-to-be pitchers, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, inked minor league contracts with the aim being that they will learn the game, and the art of pitching, over the next few years in the Pittsburgh farm system.
The likelihood of either Patel or Singh ever making the major leagues, much less being impact arms on that level, is infinitesimal. The real story here is that they are the first two athletes from India to sign with a professional sports team outside of their native country. Simply put, in this day and age of global scouting in baseball, basketball, and soccer, this is an astounding fact. India has the second largest population in the world, approximately a billion people, and is not exactly a powerhouse on the international athletic scene, yet it remains shocking that there could be this type of a first at this point in history.
Down the road, these two minor signings open up two potentially enormous doors. The first, is that since there are so many people living in India, by sheer force of probability, a few of them are almost guaranteed to be talented enough to make an impact in one of the world’s many high-profile professional sports leagues. Whether it’s soccer, baseball, or basketball there will someday be a superstar from India, or at least the sub-continent. Today marks the first step towards the inclusion of India in the global world of pro-sports scouting.
More immediately, MLB opens up a new, and potentially plentiful, market. The population of India is huge and there is an ever growing middle class with disposable income that could potentially be spent on MLB and its related products. By signing these two players, the Pirates and MLB grab headlines and attention in one of the last untapped sources of leisure revenue. Cricket is the most popular game in India right now, and the similarities between cricket and baseball are undeniable, making the MLB an easier sell than something as esoteric as football. (in the American sense, since soccer is the clear number two in India)
Whether it happens now or in the near future, India was just welcomed to the globalized age of professional sports. The ramifications will be social, cultural, and most importantly for those directly involved, monetary.
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Staff of The Stentor, Lake Forest College’s student newspaper, speak out on issues facing them. Topics discussed include LFC issues, the city of Lake Forest, and college life in general.
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