Rinku Brahmdeen Singh (19), an athletics trainee at Lucknow’s Guru Govind Singh Sports College, found himself in the spotlight on March 22 this year when he won the Million Dollar Arm, a talent hunt for baseball pitchers to be groomed to play America’s favourite sport.
Ironically prior to that date, Singh — who threw the javelin — had never heard of baseball. But when an eight- city talent hunt team landed in Lucknow last December, Singh signed up, attracted by the prize money of Rs.40 lakh.
He learned about pitching fast enough because at the Mumbai finals organised by an American sports company in conjunction with the Baseball Federation of India, he bested 27 other contestants (whittled down from the 30,000 from 30 cities who signed up for the contest). His 140 km per hour sizzling throw hit the jackpot, winning him a 12-month training contract in Los Angeles, with the chance to play professional league baseball in the US.
Written off as a ‘loafer’ and loser by his family, Singh is thrilled at the fortuitous turn of events. “Despite discouragement from my family, I was determined to make a career in sports,” says the modestly built (height: 5'7"; weight: 65 kg) youth.
And not without success either. His javelin coach J.S. Bhatia, who brought the baseball pitching contest to Singh’s notice, describes his protégé as a very promising thrower. “He would have been a good javelin thrower, but would never have achieved the fame and money which is reserved for cricketers in the country,” says Bhatia. Under Bhatia’s tutelage Singh won a silver medal at the Junior National Athletics Championship held in Vijaywada in November 2007.
And if there were any doubts about the significance of Singh’s future, they were put to rest by David C Mulford, US ambassador to India, who at a ceremony to felicitate Singh and the other two winners of the contest noted: “I want to underline the fact that this is a very notable event in the history of our relationship with India. American baseball offers a dramatic sports opportunity to young Indians.”
Since then Singh has started training at the University of South California and will be thoroughly prepared for the baseball league of 2009. “I am shaping well and have developed a passion for baseball. Someday maybe I will have a baseball card in my name. I will come back and establish a baseball league in India,” he said before emplaning for Los Angeles in June.
And since then, there’s been a sea-change in the life of this youth, who grew up in a small village located between Varanasi and Allahabad and knows just a smattering of English. American baseball may also experience a great metamorphosis.
Vidya Pandit (Lucknow)