Pirates hoping for foreign aid

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates may soon find out if an investment of $20,000 can produce a couple of million-dollar arms.

Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, their two India-born pitchers who had never seen a baseball game before being the top two finishers in a TV reality show designed to find potential major league arms, are nearly ready to make their professional debuts.

Neither had picked up a baseball, much less thrown one, until little more than a year ago. Cricket players, they had no idea American athletes could make so much money playing a sport they knew nothing about.

Now, after a busy year crowded with TV show appearances, basic baseball instruction, fitness workouts, constant throwing and adjusting to a pro athlete's life in a new country, they are about to take the mound for the Bradenton Pirates of the rookie-level Gulf Coast League.

"It's going to be fun," Pirates GM Neal Huntington said.

Pirates director of player development Kyle Stark said Tuesday the two pitchers are likely to see action this week.

As eager as the hundreds of thousands of sports-loving fans in India are to see whether they can become the first major league players from the country, the Pirates are just as curious to find out what they have in the two 20-year-olds.

Does either really possess a potential Million Dollar Arm, as the India reality show was called, or will they simply be a grand but failed experiment?

Neither player had heard of the Pirates before signing with them last fall for an estimated $10,000 apiece, following months of workouts.

"It's going to be a little different from the typical first professional outing," Huntington said. "This is really their first outing (in the sport)."

Huntington and Bradenton manager Tom Prince said it's surprising how quickly the two athletes have assimilated themselves not only into pro baseball but the American way of life.

Not long ago, Singh, a truck driver's son, was living with seven brothers and sisters in a one-room house. Today, he occasionally journeys to the Bradenton mall and enjoys eating at places other than the players' cafeteria.

One Indian player initially wouldn't go anywhere without the other but, as Huntington said, "They're no longer joined at the hip."

Singh and Patel hang out with teammates at the Pirates' minor league dormitory and are treated as equals, even though every day brings a new adventure. One on-field example: Covering first base on a ground ball, a rudimentary skill that pitchers normally are taught before high school. But it was foreign to the 6-foot-2 Singh, who made $100,000 while beating out 37,000 entrants to win the contest, and the 5-foot-9 Patel, the runner-up.