I didn’t blame Jeff. Just the opposite: I was grateful to him for sticking his neck out as far as he did. With very little to gain and a ton to lose, he took Dinesh and Rinku on as a personal favor. Even after he cashed in a bunch of favors to get people to that disastrous tryout, he never gave me any grief.
It was on me to trust my gut and advocate for Rinku and Dinesh in the way I knew best. There was plenty of interest to draw scouts to LA. Million Dollar Arm had an undeniable curiosity factor, particularly for the media. I had gone the path of least resistance. And then in a flash—with the scouts and reporters waiting while Dinesh stood on the bad mound—it was too late. Rinku and Dinesh had done everything that I, Tom, Jeff, and everyone else involved in Million Dollar Arm had asked them to do, and they did it to the absolute best of their ability. They had been ready. Their bad tryout was our fault. But mostly it was my fault.
Ultimately, I was the one responsible for these guys. I brought them over to America, lived with them, ate with them, watched movies with them, teased them, got mad at them. I experienced their frustrations, fears, loneliness, triumphs, and satisfactions. I knew where they came from and the possibility of where they could go. Yes, sometimes they drove me up the wall. But, I realized, I would also do anything for them. I was a confirmed bachelor with no interest in a family, but they had become like sons to me.
I was always fiercely passionate about my work as an agent. It was my life. But everything else in my career up to that point had been business. My other clients were already rich and successful when I took them on, so doing right by them was based on calculations of time, compensation, and image enhancement. With Dinesh and Rinku, I was personally invested in their success in a way that couldn’t completely be explained by figures. They had entrusted me to take them out of India, putting their military careers in jeopardy to try this crazy experiment. From the start, I said Million Dollar Arm was a numbers game, but I hadn’t been totally correct. What I felt for Rinku and Dinesh couldn’t be summed up. At this point, it wasn’t about me, or my career, or even Million Dollar Arm. The two of them deserved another shot, simple as that. It couldn’t be the end for those guys.
* * *
After the tryout, we rode back to the hotel, where we picked up our bags and then went directly to the airport to return to LA. It was a long, tough, quiet day.
Tom broke the oppressive silence in the car on the way to the airport to tell Dinesh and Rinku a story. Once, while he was a pitcher for the Red Sox, his manager, Don Zimmer, brought him into a game in the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium. As Tom approached the mound, the famously gruff skipper put the ball in his hand and said, “Just don’t give up a home run, you son of a bitch.”
Before Zimmer could even make it back to the bench, slugging first baseman Chris Chambliss took Tom deep to end the game. During his lonely walk back to the dugout, Zimmer yelled, “What did I just tell you?!”
Rinku and Dinesh both laughed, but that was the last laughter I was to hear for a long while.
When we got back to the mansion, we each went to our own rooms without a word. There wasn’t a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Dinesh and Rinku thought their baseball careers were over before they had started. The best they could expect was a one-way ticket back to India where they would be lucky to get another shot at joining the army.
In their minds, they had thrown away the opportunity of a lifetime and would never have another chance to prove themselves. Even worse, their failure would most likely stop the baseball world from taking India seriously again in the future. That was a heavy weight on their shoulders, and one that I couldn’t do anything to alleviate. Many agreed with the boys. One major-league team dismissed the tryout as “a failed social experiment.”
For six months, I had watched these guys take everything in stride. They never got too high or low with anything. But now Rinku and Dinesh were launched into a full-on deep depression. They hardly ate and talked even less. They wouldn’t say a word. They didn’t do anything other than sit on the couch or lie on their beds, not watching TV or talking on the phone but simply staring into space. Crushed, they waited to be sent home as if it were a death sentence. They thought that at any minute I was going to tell them, “Here are your tickets. Nice knowing you.”
For several days, we all stuck to our corners. What could I say to them? I felt completely responsible but wasn’t going to sit there apologizing, so that the three of us devolved into some stupid pity party. I gave them their space while I brainstormed on how I could save this sinking ship.
But, man, could those guys brood. The storm cloud their mood produced over our heads was so threatening that at a certain point I couldn’t take another minute of two comatose Indian kids on the couch. If I was ever going to figure out a way to get them another shot at their dream, I had to get them out of the house.
“Look, I’ve had it,” I said. “I have just had it. That’s it, guys. Get back to work.”
Jarred out of their emotional and physical stupor, they blinked uncomprehendingly, as if to say, Huh? What’s this crazy guy talking about?
“Get back to USC. We are working to get another tryout. Proceed as if nothing has changed.”
Now I had to make that happen. I couldn’t promise that, but I would do everything in my power to get a second tryout. Even if I couldn’t pull it off, the worst-case scenario would be that they had to return home—which was their expectation at this point anyway. They had nothing to lose by going back to work with Coach House.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourselves and get going.”
They were shocked, but I didn’t leave them any choice.
“Get the hell out of the house and get back to what you came here to do.”
The next day, they were off the couch and back on the mound. Once they were over at Dedeaux Field, they fell into their old routine. Getting back into pitching turned out to be incredibly therapeutic for them. Tom, the master of attitude, went to work on their minds as well as their arms. “Forget about that last tryout,” he said. “Erase it from your memory. As far as you are concerned, it never happened. Just do what you do. You are pitchers; you need to pitch.”
I knew that I had two players who were markedly better than the ones that appeared before the scouts in Arizona. They needed and deserved a second chance at USC on their home mound. But I was concerned about being able to round up enough scouts. Although a couple of teams had missed the first tryout in Tempe, the media coverage had been so damning and widespread, there wasn’t a soul in baseball who didn’t know the outcome. Tom, Ray, Jeff, and I spent day and night strategizing. The four of us worked every angle we could. In the end, the curiosity of the few clubs that had missed the first tryout, and Tom’s close personal connections with a few general managers, enticed enough people to warrant a second tryout.
A few weeks after we returned from Tempe, I sat down Dinesh and Rinku when they came home from practice to have a talk.
“Guys,” I said solemnly, “I have bad news.”
They hung their heads like firing squad victims. They were sure I was going to tell them that we were sending them home.
Then I smiled. “You’ve got a second tryout.”
Shocked and confused, they looked at each other for clarification.
“I told you guys that we would get you another shot. We’re doing it at USC, on your home turf, on our terms. No travel. No crappy mound. No media circus. Whatever excuses may have existed after the first tryout won’t apply this time around. You’re going to get one more shot, and you are going to make the most of it. Life rarely offers you a second chance. But there won’t be any more after this. It’s do-or-die time.
“So don’t mess it up.”
Rinku and Dinesh jumped up, hugged each other, and then hugged me. As low as they had been before, they were that fired up now. They had received a death row reprieve. But it was just a reprieve. On their futures, the jury was still out.
In the days leading
up to the second tryout in November 2008, Rinku kept trying to psych himself up. Every time he looked in a mirror, he would tell himself, “No fear.” But just telling yourself not to be afraid doesn’t make the fear go away. The guys were up against much more than stage fright. There was the fear of irrevocable failure; the fear of the end of a long road.
I did whatever I could to support Rinku and Dinesh the day of the second tryout. We treated the morning like any other: they meditated while I wrote work emails, we ate breakfast, they grabbed their equipment bags, and we headed over to the campus. It was business as usual as they warmed up. Tom had crafted their week’s schedule so that they would be physically peaking for the tryout. With a total of six scouts, the crowd was very small. The Pirates, the Yankees, and the Mariners were represented—and nobody expected much from these Indian boys.
Again Dinesh took the mound first. His expression of seriousness—the look of a man about to kill someone—set the tone as he wound up for his fastball. His lead foot hit the firm landing area, and he released his first pitch. It seemed to hang in the air forever. Then I heard it. The ball thundered into the mitt. The catcher didn’t have to move a muscle. I knew in my gut the minute I heard it: that was a real pitch. All my sins, all the screw-ups, were knocked out with that sound. I turned to see the number on the gun. Dinesh’s throw registered at 91 mph. It was an awesome feeling, unlike any other.
Dinesh continued to kill it. Boom, boom, boom. It was amazing. As bad as he had been in Tempe was as good as he was in LA. Then Rinku did the same. Pop. Pop. Pop. They both kept bringing the heat. Ninety-one . . . ninety-three . . . ninety . . . ninety . . . ninety-one.
That moment, those sounds, the numbers were pure redemption. Every time the ball thumped the heart of the mitt, it wasn’t about whether or not Rinku or Dinesh landed a deal. Earlier, I had said to them that whether or not they were signed, they had to give it their all or risk spending the rest of their lives plagued by regret. There’s a reason they pay guys $25 million a year to throw a baseball; it’s because very few people can do it at the elite level. But if they tried their best, and their best wasn’t good enough, then they had no reason to feel any shame. As we wrapped up the second tryout, no one could dispute that they had pitched to their full ability.
We didn’t need proof or external validation. Still, it was nice to get the call.
We knew that they had pitched well enough to get signed, but the waiting was still tough. Over the next few days, there were a few nibbles, and ultimately Jeff got a few offers for Rinku or Dinesh, but no team had stepped up to sign them both.
After about a week, Jeff called me in the afternoon to let me know that the Pirates made an offer to take both of them (thanks to Jeff), which was the best of all worlds. No one could imagine splitting up Rinku and Dinesh. They each got a $10,000 signing bonus, which wasn’t bad for a minor-league deal. Million Dollar Arm had started because I didn’t want to deal with guys who wanted $1 million payoffs handed over in duffel bags, and, indeed, the sweetest deal I ever brought to a client was $10K. It wasn’t just the money. To Rinku and Dinesh, and both their families, $10,000 was very significant, but the pride of knowing that they had done something so historic was immeasurable.
I was more than happy; I was proud. They had not only achieved their dream and mine but also made history.
I broke the news to Rinku and Dinesh as they huddled over a tinfoil sheet of freshly baked Tater Tots. They were back to their stoical selves after the wild emotional swings of Tempe, and took the news with a quiet sense of awe. For a few seconds, they were silent, as if in shock, and then they smiled, and we hugged it out again. Having absorbed the reality that they were going to be the first Indians to play professional baseball in America, they both called their parents in India to share the good news.
Then they wanted to see a map, so they could figure out where Pittsburgh was.
CHAPTER 9
“Rinku! Dinesh! Come downstairs!” I shouted. “Come see what Santa brought you!”
Rinku and Dinesh, still half asleep, stumbled slowly down the stairs of the mansion. Over the last few months, I had celebrated Hindu holidays with them after realizing that part of their training was dealing with homesickness. In honor of Diwali, the Festival of Lights and the most important holiday of the year, we lit a clay lamp outside our home to symbolize enlightenment in the face of spiritual darkness. In a show of cultural exchange, I wanted to share Christmas with them, albeit through the much less serious ritual of Santa.
I didn’t have a Christmas tree (I was still a single guy, after all), but I did get them gifts. After I handed them out, they unwrapped their packages slowly, careful not to rip the shiny wrapping paper. I had bought each of them nice long-sleeved shirts without any kind of sports logo (for once).
Neither Rinku nor Dinesh had brought a lot of clothes with him from India, and used to a warmer and more humid climate than Southern California, they were always cold. I told them to take whatever they needed from my closet. They went ahead and raided it for sweatshirts, but everything they wore was either licensed apparel from Barry Bonds or Barry Sanders, or from USC.
The shirts I bought them, warm but not hooded or branded, were so that they could step it up a little from their usual.
“Thank you, sir,” Dinesh said. “This is very nice shirt.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Santa. It’s from him.”
“J.B., sir, this is from you, sir,” Rinku corrected.
I had told the guys all about Santa the night before, but they weren’t buying it. They had gone online to fact-check this “very crazy American festival” and decided that it was nearly impossible that any jolly old guy and his band of elves lived in the North Pole.
“You say it is true, sir, but we not believing Santa Claus deliver us shirts in night,” Dinesh said.
I gave up on getting them to believe in the magic of Santa and instead served up a big Christmas breakfast spread of bacon, fruit, oatmeal, and, of course, supercakes.
Not much changed about our living situation and routine as they continued training at USC through the winter of 2008–09. After they signed with the Pirates, they did get a taste of minor stardom. They made the cover of a special issue of Sports Illustrated Kids and were also featured in the SI March Madness issue. Neel Shah, who worked for the New York Post’s famed gossip column Page Six, wrote a six-page spread about the boys for the Indian version of GQ magazine. Rinku’s and Dinesh’s families couldn’t believe their sons were featured in the same magazine as big Indian movie stars. Dinesh and Rinku couldn’t, either. When the issue with Bollywood megastar Ranbir Kapoor on its cover arrived at the house, they thought I had somehow faked their article inside.
No fifteen minutes of fame would be complete without a little scandal. Shortly after they signed their contracts, a blog called BabeWatch made Rinku its “babe” of the week. After making an analogy to—what else—Slumdog Millionaire, the blog wrote, “With that solid 6'2" build and that face, he’s sure to win over his share of admirers (and groupies) in no time.”
This wasn’t something that Rinku or I knew anything about or approved of. It just turned up one day on my Google news alert, and when Rinku read the entry, he was furious. He misunderstood the content: “One very, very bad thing about the news is that they say I on the ‘babe watch.’ This is not true. I not watching girls. I only pitching, training, eat, watch baseball and movies, and sleep.” He didn’t get that it was saying the babes were watching him. Dinesh and I had a field day with it. I printed out about a hundred copies of that thing and stuck them up all over the house to drive Rinku crazy. It worked. “Sir, I am not on the babe watch!” he seethed.
The guys didn’t have much time to bask—or wallow—in their newfound celebrity. By February, they had to report to Bradenton, Florida, for spring training. I accompanied them to the small city of about fifty thousand people, located between Tampa and Sarasota, that is the home of Pirate City, Pittsburgh’s spring train
ing facility. The climate is very hot where Dinesh and Rinku grew up. As they quickly discovered, Bradenton is even hotter.
In the room they shared in Pirate City, there were two pictures on the wall of Bill Mazeroski, who won the 1960 World Series for the Pirates with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth of game seven against the mighty New York Yankees. In between them, Rinku and Dinesh mounted a picture of the god Shiva, to whom they prayed every day. (They had no idea who Mazeroski was.)
Up until this point, they had pitched only to college students. But now they were up against a whole new level of competition as the entire Pirates organization, from rookies all the way up to the major-league roster, worked on the conditioning of its athletes.
A lot of baseball players come into camp really out of shape, particularly pitchers, who are often advised not to throw in the off-season. Meanwhile, Rinku and Dinesh had been working out really hard for the last eight months—so that they could learn how to throw. On the first day of full-squad practice, every single player was lined up on the field for a warm-up run. When the coach yelled, “Run. Go!” Rinku and Dinesh took his words to heart and ran as fast as they could until they were done.
They were in such good shape compared to everyone else that when they arrived at the finish line, they stood there and jogged in place. The next closest player was about ten minutes behind them, gasping for air and about to pass out from heat exhaustion when he finished.
Rinku’s and Dinesh’s good condition wasn’t exactly appreciated by the rest of the team, particularly some veterans who didn’t like being upstaged by two insanely inexperienced foreigners.
“Why are you running so fast?” one of them, panting, asked the guys.
“Sir, excuse me,” Dinesh said. “We only have one speed.”
It was kind of true, but spring training is a cutthroat environment. A combination of sleepaway camp and a grueling job interview, it is not a place you go to have fun. Everyone from fresh-faced sixteen-year-old high school recruits to forty-year-old superstars bunk, eat, and work out together. With this unorthodox mix, there is understandably a lot of hazing. Grizzled vets order the newbies to get them food in the cafeteria or carry their duffel bags to practice.
Million Dollar Arm Page 13