FanHouse DineshPatel

The video posted above seems like wholly unremarkable footage from a generic Gulf Coast League game between the Pirates and Yankees affiliates. That's until you realize that the pitcher for the Pirates is Rinku Singh and the first pitch thrown in that video is in fact the first professional pitch thrown by a native of India in a professional baseball game. Both Singh and his countryman Dinesh Patel made their professional debuts, fittingly enough, on the Fourth of July.

It's official, the Pittsburgh Pirates have gone global. They haven't signed a working agreement with those rowdy fellows in Somalia who share their nickname nor have they followed so many others into Latin America or Japan. No, the Pirates are tapping more remote outposts. They signed a South African shortstop earlier this fall and now they're hitting the world's second most populous country. They signed Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel today, making the duo the first two Indian-born athletes to sign professional baseball contracts.

Singh and Patel caught the eye of the baseball world by winning an Indian reality TV show called Million Dollar Arm, which was run by Barry Bonds' marketing agent. Singh won, brought Patel with him to the U.S. and both had a tryout in front of scouts. Pittsburgh GM Neal Huntington saw enough to roll the dice.

"We are intrigued by Patel's arm strength and Singh's frame and potential. These young men have improved a tremendous amount in their six-month exposure to baseball, and we look forward to helping them continue to fulfill their potential."

In addition to their mound skills, Singh and Patel are also wickedly good bloggers (much thanks to Walkoff Walk for sharing their genius with the world). The Pirates are hoping they turn out better than Patel's blog review of Rock n Rolla: "it was supposed to be big action, but it was no action at all."

Even if they never make it to the big leagues, the Pirates just became India's most popular baseball team, which ought to be good for some outsourcing opportunities -- Jack Wilson, welcome to Mumbai! -- if nothing else.

International Pastime looks at baseball's influence outside the U.S.

In recent years we've seen quite an influx of international players in Major League Baseball, with most of the players coming from the Oriental countries of Asia. You have your Daisukes, your Ichiros, your Fukudomes, and your Wangs along with many other players from Japan and Korea. The newest Japanese import will be pitcher Junichi Tazawa who is already getting interest from the Boston Red Sox.

Of course, Major League teams are now scouting the Far East pretty regularly in search of the newest import superstar. If you live in any other part of Asia and want to play baseball in the big leagues, you have to cross the Pacific Ocean first, which is exactly what two kids from India have done, with a little help along the way.

Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, two 19-year-olds from small villages in India, desperately want to live the American dream. Their shot at it is a decidedly improbable one.