In the last month before the tryouts, Rinku was consistently hitting 90 on the radar gun and getting the hang of the curve and changeup. Dinesh was right there with him. By now they had developed a healthy rivalry with each other. Never cutthroat, malicious, or counterproductive, their competitiveness was all about pushing each other to continue to improve every day, every hour, every minute they had left before the pro scouts would judge their pitching abilities. It was hard to say which one of the boys was better or whether either was truly a legitimate prospect. But one thing was for sure: it was impossible not to root for them.
With one week left until the tryout, I asked Jeff Borris, a top baseball contract agent, to watch Dinesh and Rinku pitch on the USC field. Because I wasn’t certified by the Major League Baseball Players Association to handle playing contracts, we hired Jeff to be Rinku’s and Dinesh’s contract agent in the event that either of them got signed. Jeff is not only a close friend and really smart guy, but he is also a huge agent who worked his way up from an entry-level position to part owner of the Beverly Hills Sports Council agency. He has represented players such as Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, and Albert Pujols in their contract negotiations.
Jeff was the one leading the initiative for Rinku’s and Dinesh’s tryouts, convincing scouts to give them a chance and watch them pitch, so it was important for him to see what kind of talent he was promoting. I wasn’t at USC when he showed up, but Jeff called me immediately to give his verdict on their level of talent.
“Oh my God, this is going to be terrible,” he said. “They can’t pitch!”
“You probably just caught them on a bad day,” I reasoned.
“Bad day? Even if what I saw was the very worst day of their lives, their best day can’t be that good.”
CHAPTER 8
Our biggest risk was stage fright.
Rinku and Dinesh had persevered and done the work. They had focused on baseball to the exclusion of everything else and thrown pitches until their arms nearly fell off. They had overcome frustration, humiliation, and exhaustion to turn themselves into pitchers. Really good pitchers.
In the days leading up to the November 5 tryout in Tempe, Rinku and Dinesh had both been consistently throwing strikes at 90 miles per hour. They knew they had enough control and enough speed to get signed. They didn’t need luck or divine intervention. All they had to do was to get on a mound, keep their nerve, and show the world what they could do. This perfect, sunny Arizona day was going to be Rinku’s and Dinesh’s moment—and the validation of Million Dollar Arm.
I was expecting a crowd for their tryout, and that’s exactly what we got. The attendance of over thirty team scouts was extremely rare, even in the case of a one-in-a-million high school recruit. Everyone involved with the project—including Will, Tom, Ray, and me—made as many phone calls as possible to any team with which we had any relationship. But Jeff was the one primarily responsible for the turnout. Holding the tryout in Tempe had been his brainchild, and as a big baseball agent, he had tons of connections. He had used the full force of his juice to tell scouts that they did not want to miss out on seeing Rinku and Dinesh pitch.
“I don’t know if your bosses made you be here,” Coach House said as part of his introduction of Rinku and Dinesh to the scouts, “but I’m glad you’re here.”
Scouts weren’t the only ones who had come out to that strip mall in the middle of Tempe. Also present were dozens of sports reporters from all the major newspapers and television and radio stations across the country. As Rinku and Dinesh remained cloistered inside the training facility warming up, so much camera and sound equipment was being set up that it looked like the site of a presidential press conference.
There was a huge curiosity factor. People couldn’t help but be interested in seeing if this odd and far-fetched scheme was actually possible. And, on the off chance that Dinesh and Rinku turned out to be elite prospects, no one wanted to be the one team or media outlet that missed out.
Surrounded by nothing but blue skies on the dazzling fall day, I was so confident that everyone present was going to be completely and utterly blown away that I superimposed a fantasy on the scene before me, in which these two new Indian superstars, surrounded by reporters clamoring for a quote, had MLB teams making them offers left and right.
Yes, the air was charged with hope. The tryout was held just one day after Barack Obama was elected president. As the story of Dinesh’s and Rinku’s tryout went international, in a lot of countries the historic nature of America electing its first African American president was juxtaposed with their attempt to become the first athletes from India to make it in a big-time American sport. As far as I was concerned, that was a great story line.
While I was riding high, I made a conscientious decision to forgo any kind of pep talk. I was an agent, not a coach, and didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I also didn’t want to put any more pressure than the million tons already on them from the expectant and important crowd waiting outside to watch them throw. But mostly I didn’t want to jinx it. I felt Rinku and Dinesh were ready. That was all.
In that moment, everything and everyone was positive—even Jeff. While Rinku and Dinesh had been warming up inside, pitching in the solid 90s, Jeff turned to me in amazement and said, “Who are these guys? They can pitch.” I was right. Having caught them on a bad day when he came to watch them throw at the USC campus, he marveled at how different and how much better they looked today. With that last, important vote of confidence, it seemed like nothing could stop us.
Except a mound.
A few staff members from the training facility pulled back the tarp that had been covering the mound since we arrived the day before, and Dinesh climbed it to throw the pitches that would decide his entire future.
“Coach, mound no good.”
Dinesh’s words rang out like an alarm.
The dirt on the mound, sandy and soft, was different from what Dinesh and Rinku were used to at USC. The texture was not atypical of the pitching mounds across the Arizona desert, but the shifting ground was completely unfamiliar when compared to the firm, compact dirt back in LA. The dirt was just one of the problems with the mound. There was also no pitching rubber, a plank that pitchers use to generate power by pushing their back foot off of it when they deliver the ball. Maybe the worst part, though, was the landing area. The area where the lead foot lands as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand was a one-foot ditch. To put it bluntly, the mound was a nightmare.
We had done a walk-through and scouted the grounds of the Tempe training facility a day before the tryouts. Owned by a friend of Jeff’s and used by a lot of players rehabbing injuries, the facility looked great. Inside, the state-of-the-art equipment was sparkling clean. Outside, the field was neat and green. We passed the mound, covered with a tarp to protect it from the elements. It never occurred to me to look underneath.
And now it was too late. The mound had not been prepped properly. A recent rain—an unusual occurrence in Arizona—had turned the sandy mound muddy. The guys had no choice but to pitch on it. They already had so many obstacles to overcome in just getting to this point, but we had thrown in a huge stumbling block in the form of a cruddy mound. It was ludicrous. These guys were used to USC’s mound, which was as flawless as anything you’d find in a pro ballpark. The drop-off in quality was alarming.
An experienced pitcher might have had half a chance. Most guys who have pitched their whole lives have dealt with some crummy mounds once in a while. Many grow up pitching off cracked concrete in inner cities or poorly maintained fields covered with weeds. Along the way, they get used to dealing with the little and big variations that attend every single mound. They learn how to compensate and adapt; to deliver the ball regardless of the conditions. At this point, though, Rinku and Dinesh only knew USC.
While Dinesh tried to find his footing on the shaky ground, a million negative thoughts flooded my brain. All these things that weren’t a problem two seconds earlier were immed
iate, pressing, and ultimately overwhelming.
Why did we do this in Arizona? Why didn’t I check the mound? How could I have let down the guys like this? How can I fix this? I want to bring the guys back inside to the warm-up area where the mound is good. But there’s not enough room inside for all the scouts and reporters.
The entire year flashed as quickly as my thoughts. The dusty parks of India, the contestants hoarding Gatorade and sleeping on the floor, Rinku disobeying his parents to come to the finals of Million Dollar Arm, the flight to America, towel drills, Baseball for Dummies, chicken fried rice, fastballs, curveballs, low points, high points. Overloaded and increasingly upset, I froze like a hitter taking a called third strike from the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera. I lost control of the situation, as if this were my very first event.
As soon as I started breathing again, everyone else was moving full steam ahead, and it was too late again.
The next five minutes—the worst five minutes of my entire life—felt like they took place over six hours.
Dinesh uncorked his first pitch. As if fueled by the energy of a million nerves, it was so high that it caused something to happen that I had never ever seen before: the scouts, the vast majority of whom stood behind home plate, ducked. Watching pitches behind home plate is what scouts do all day, every day, for most of the year, throughout America and many countries across the globe. They are steely, stony men with large guts from eating mama’s meatloaf everywhere from Seattle to Santo Domingo. They do not duck. But Dinesh’s pitch was so high and out of control that, even though there was a net, the scouts threw their arms up as a reflex.
Dinesh threw about fifteen pitches, one worse than the next. He threw mostly fastballs, mixing in a handful of breaking pitches. All were awful.
When a pitcher does a tryout, the catcher isn’t supposed to move an inch. The ball should hit his glove like it was drawn to it by an irrevocable force. When Dinesh pitched, the catcher had to dive all over the place. Many times, the ball wound up in the dirt, bouncing away as if this were some game of catch with elementary school kids. No, that’s an insult to elementary school kids. The whole thing was just terrible. When he finished, Dinesh was visibly crushed. Head down and shoulders slumped, he refused to make eye contact with me as he shuffled off the mound.
Next up was Rinku, who had all the same issues as Dinesh. His pitches were just as wild; the only difference was that they were slightly slower.
Rinku’s and Dinesh’s pitches topped out in the mid-80s. Their release points were all over the place, and so was the ball. All of the fundamentals they had worked on for months went out the window. If not for the netting around the plate, a few throws definitely would have beaned a scout or two in the head.
Afterward, neither Rinku nor Dinesh had any illusions about how he had performed. No one did. Jeff was upset as well. He felt bad for the kids but at the same time was dreading the egg that was surely coming to his face. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the tryouts for the guys. They had to face the many members of the media who had turned out to see what they could do. Talking to the press after a bitter disappointment is tough for any athlete, but nothing in Rinku’s and Dinesh’s lives had prepared them for any of the trials of the spotlight. In an ESPN interview with Mark Schwarz, when asked if they thought they had done enough to get signed, the boys gave a deflated and resounding “No, sir.”
When all they wanted to do was to crawl under a rock and die, they had to analyze their much-less-than-stellar performance, as well as answer whether they had ever heard of Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, or Babe Ruth. The answer to every question was the same: “No, sir.” These guys, who had been eating, sleeping, and breathing baseball for the last six months, still appeared by American standards as if they knew almost nothing about it.
More than a few members of the media wanted to riff on Slumdog Millionaire, which had just been released to much acclaim. The blockbuster about a kid from Mumbai who wins $1 million on a game show seemed to connect with Rinku’s and Dinesh’s story in the eyes of the reporters. One of them asked Rinku, “What is your slum like?”
The media in general, but particularly sports media, want to package stories in the most digestible yet exciting narrative possible. The reporters talking to Rinku and Dinesh wanted to dramatize the boys’ journey from slum to coming this close to the major leagues—only to face having to return to the degradation of the slums. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
While I understood the concept, it was still offensive to me. And I could see from their expressions that it was also upsetting to Rinku and Dinesh. These motivated kids were from good families who worked hard to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, as well as give their children an education. It wasn’t unlike many American families. They lived the same way billions of others do around the world. “Sir, I come from a farm,” Dinesh answered. “We never steal or beg.”
Both of them were the epitome of grace during the interviews, answering each question politely, even though I could tell their hearts were breaking.
In the end, the story of Rinku’s and Dinesh’s tryouts wasn’t the poverty of their native villages or their ignorance of Mickey Mantle; it was how lousy they did on the mound. All in all, I think 128 countries ran a story on that disastrous day in Tempe—including India—and none of them had a silver lining. The piece that ran on SportsCenter was characteristic of the coverage: “Quite candidly, for me as a scout, they just are not ready for professional baseball,” Tom Shanks, a scout for the Seattle Mariners, said. I almost threw up when I saw it.
In trying to get the scouts out to the tryouts, the most important point I had worked to get across was that Dinesh and Rinku were not some kind of publicity stunt. I told teams that both guys were extremely raw, but they were legitimate prospects with the unique upside of a billion potential followers at home if they were successful. If developed correctly, either one or both of them could generate Yao Ming–level revenue, I argued passionately. In addition, they would open the door for other prospects in India.
As impassioned as I was in my pitch before the tryouts, I was equally reticent after them. Word about Rinku’s and Dinesh’s poor performances spread through the sports community like wildfire. It was a total catastrophe, and it was everywhere. I had to shut off my phone because the stupid thing wouldn’t stop ringing. I didn’t want people’s condolences, and I definitely didn’t want them reminding me that they had warned me this was the worst idea ever.
I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, the same as everyone. But when I look back on almost all the bad decisions I’ve made, the one thing they have in common is that I went against my instincts. I can usually recall with great clarity the moment in the process when I strayed from my gut and visualize precisely all my motivations and thinking that led me astray. Rinku’s and Dinesh’s tryout, however, was a blur. I had no idea why I let things happen the way they did. The regrets heaped one on top of the other in a staggeringly tall stack. I should have stepped in. I should have made everyone wait a half hour while we fixed the mound. I should have squeezed everyone inside. So what if it ruined the shot for TV? That wasn’t what the day was about. It was about Rinku and Dinesh, two kids with a ton of heart who had traveled across the world to work their asses off for a shot at playing pro ball; to do something that no one in the history of their country had even attempted, much less accomplished.
My original instinct was that it was a mistake to hold the tryouts in Arizona. Tempe had been Jeff’s idea. I was nervous about taking the guys outside their comfort zone at USC. But Jeff was adamant, because many of the scouts would already be in town for the state’s annual Winter League, where Arizona minor-league teams send their hot talent to compete after the season is over. Every fall, professional free agents, looking for a new contract, flock to the area. Hence the presence of the scouts. If we held the tryout nearby, Jeff was confident that he could deliver a massive turnout of scouts from almost every team
, which is exactly what he did.
“If you ask these guys to travel for a long shot like your Indian boys, a lot of them won’t show up,” Jeff said. “This is what we should do. It’s our best chance.”
When it comes to business, I always say that I know what I don’t know. If I’m the smartest or most informed guy in a room, I have no problem taking the lead and overriding everybody else. But holding baseball tryouts did not fall under my area of expertise. Jeff’s points made sense, so I deferred to him.
But in hindsight, I recognized that these guys were special cases. This was their first time pitching in front of a group of strangers. And there was so much on the line. The guys were uneasy enough with the basics of the tryouts. They should have been in their comfort zone. Every detail of their routine was a crucial component. It wasn’t just about the mound; it was also about waking up in their own beds, eating their regular breakfast, tying their cleats in front of the same locker. We added extra levels of difficulty for no good reason. I wanted to kill myself for being so stupid.
Jeff discounted the impact of them being out of their element on their pitching. He hadn’t spent six months as these guys struggled to figure out how pizza arrived at their door and why you needed to draw your glove hand in tight to your chest as you went through your delivery. Sweet-talking scouts into flying to California, as opposed to driving a few miles to the strip mall in Tempe, meant sticking his neck out perhaps more than Jeff was comfortable doing. He would never have heard the end of the griping if Rinku and Dinesh stunk, which they did that day.
Million Dollar Arm Page 12