Million Dollar Arm

by J. B. Bernstein

  The odds are against any minor leaguer making it to the big leagues, but I would not bet against Rinku. He decided along the way that he would do everything in his power to make it to the majors and has been steadily climbing the minor-league ranks. Rinku is not worried about the millions of ways he could get sent home. Instead, he is focused solely on the one chance he has to make it.

  I’ve been around some of the greatest athletes who ever lived, and all of them share the same conviction that life is not worth living if they are not the absolute best at what they do. Barry Bonds lifted weights every day of his life for twenty-five years. Every game day, he watched video of whoever was pitching that night, as well as video of his previous 100 at bats. As soon as the football season ended in 1994, the year that Barry Sanders rushed for over 1,800 yards, he asked NFL Films to give him videotape of every single carry he’d ever had in the NFL. Sometime over the course of that season, Barry had been caught from behind, and he had made up his mind that it was never happening again. Coming off of a season that most would consider unreal, averaging more than 100 yards per game, Barry spent the off-season going through hundreds of hours of tape. He discovered that his “knee lift” and “ankle turnover” were a little off. And he never did get tackled from behind again.

  It remains to be seen whether Rinku has enough talent to become an iconic athlete, but he possesses the same work ethic as any of my top guys. That unique mental makeup is both a blessing and a curse: every second that Rinku is awake, he’s trying new training methods and doing whatever he can to push himself further and further.

  That drive was in Rinku before he ever stepped foot in the States, but America has changed him—permanently. Just as he no longer throws errant pitches, long gone is the kid who got shaky at the sight of a Denny’s Grand Slam. Both his ears are pierced, and he has a huge tribal tattoo across his chest that features his mother’s name written in Hindi. He talks like a real American ballplayer (“This is bullshit, man” is a common refrain, making me miss the days of “J.B., sir”), and he likes to fly first class. (Who doesn’t?)

  But I don’t care how much Rinku changes or how hard he pushes himself. He has a good head on his shoulders and is a tremendous representative of his family, his culture, and his nation. For someone whom I pulled out of an Indian village, he carries himself like a media-savvy veteran. When a reporter from India asked him about the decision he made to come to America and the repercussions it had on giving up a shot at representing India in the Olympics by throwing javelin, Rinku didn’t miss a beat.

  “Sir, I do represent India,” he said, explaining how in the minor leagues almost every day he meets people who have never met anyone from India before and might never do so again. He clears up cultural misconceptions and racist stereotypes with kindness and compassion.

  “I do represent India by playing baseball in the United States.”

  And so does Dinesh—a fact that was not lost on Barack Obama. The pair met the president of the United States at a White House event in May 2010 honoring Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Naturally, neither Dinesh nor Rinku owned a suit, so someone from the Pirates took them to the outlets near training camp in Florida to buy jackets, shirts, and ties (or “neck ropes” as Rinku and Dinesh called them).

  Back home, they were featured on the front page of the Times of India in a story with the headline “Two Village Boys Meet President Obama.” At the event, they presented their jerseys to the president, which went into his official archive. When President Obama shook hands with them, he encouraged them to “keep up the good work.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  * * *

  When I started Million Dollar Arm, I thought I was taking a big risk. I worried that I would return from my foray into India having failed to find a single kid who could pitch. It would prove that everyone who thought I was stupid or insane was right. My time abroad would have nothing to show for it other than the neglect of my old clients and the loss of recruiting new ones. I thought the risk in the whole Million Dollar Arm enterprise was primarily that of wrecking my career, which at the time was far and away the most important thing in my life.

  My partners, Will and Ash, and I were definitely lucky to find Rinku and Dinesh. People in India are like people in all countries; not everyone is a saint. That is particularly true when talking about teenage guys. We could have very easily returned from India with athletes who at best didn’t respect the investment we were making in them and at worst got in a ton of trouble.

  Despite the radical shift in culture they experienced while trying to learn a sport from scratch, Rinku and Dinesh gave us everything they had—without complaint. It’s hard enough for any young man to try to make it in pro baseball, but add to that a language barrier, homesickness, and the pressure of representing an entire country. What those guys achieved was nothing short of remarkable.

  But there was never any risk. Not really.

  I went to India with the idea of finding baseball talent in an untapped market. What I discovered were the limitless opportunities that arise when you search for potential in those who don’t even know they possess it. Looking in unexpected places for the extraordinary expanded my field of vision and changed how I saw the world. In the end, the whole enterprise wasn’t so much about finding the best pitchers. It was about giving people a chance to surpass what is expected of them and what they expect of themselves to achieve much, much more.

  In witnessing Rinku and Dinesh leave the comfort of home (no matter how modest or isolated it might have seemed to me, it was their whole world) to take a wild leap of faith across the globe toward a goal that made little sense to them, simply because I said they could do it, was nothing short of heroic. I’ve never had clients who made me less money and yet gave me so much. Whether Rinku makes it to the major league and whatever Dinesh does back in India, they are better for knowing that their lives are what they make of it. And I am better for having been along with them for the journey.

  For me, Million Dollar Arm was an awakening. In wondering how many kids in those Indian villages could make something of themselves if they had the right advantages, I began to examine what I had made of myself. Taking inventory, my accomplishments didn’t match my resources. I was a hard worker, but even in all my efforts on behalf of my clients, I had kept myself closed off from others. Like Rinku’s father said, our job on this earth is to be a link to those who came before us and those who will be here long after we are gone. It wasn’t until I helped two guys from India to dream that I had any inkling of what that meant.

  In late 2010, after Rinku’s second season, he and I celebrated Diwali together at a temple in Mumbai. Rinku read from a sacred Hindi tablet, after which we made offerings of spices, flowers, and money, and then whispered wishes into the ear of a statue of a rat. By then I was a husband with a baby on the way, a description I never thought would apply to me. My prayers during the festival, honoring the inner light that transcends physical being, revolved around the health and well-being of the ones I loved already and the one on the way. For myself, all I hoped was to be a good, strong link for them, as well as anyone else needing a little help to dream.

  EPILOGUE

  Rinku’s and Dinesh’s triumphant homecoming became even more of a cause for celebration. While we were still in India, I found out that the Million Dollar Arm movie was a done deal.

  Ironically, when I originally came up with the contest’s concept, Mark Ciardi, the movie’s producer, was one in the large group of naysayers who’d warned me that it was going to cost me my shirt and my reputation.

  I have known Mark, who had a brief career as a pitcher with the Milwaukee Brewers before becoming a big-time Hollywood producer, for years. Mark is now happily married with kids, but back in the early nineties, when I lived in South Beach, Miami, he used to visit frequently and go with me to clubs to chase girls. I chased the best girl when I was with Mark: my first official “date” with Brenda was at
a barbecue at his house.

  I know he had my best interests at heart when, in the middle of a Super Bowl event where it was so noisy that the only words he heard me say while I explained my Million Dollar Arm concept were “India” and “reality show,” it was enough to convince him I was making a really bad career move.

  Unbeknown to Mark, in the summer of 2008, while I was sitting in the USC dugout watching Rinku and Dinesh early in their training, Neil Mandt showed up and told me that he loved the boys’ blog and that it could be a great documentary. He asked if he could film as it unfolded and I agreed. He and his brother Michael (Mandt Bros. Productions) filmed their entire training and both tryouts to create a sizzle reel that became the blueprint for the movie. They were pushing it around Hollywood when I called Ciardi and asked him to take a look at it as a favor to me. At the same time someone in his office had mentioned the story, at which point he put two and two together and said, “That’s J.B.!”

  Yup.

  Mark got on board, and suddenly we were making a movie. He brought in Roth Films and Disney, which hired the talented screenwriter Tom McCarthy, who worked up a great script. Not only is Tom a highly respected writer and director, but he was also a writer for and actor in my partner Ash’s all-time favorite TV show, The Wire, which, from Ash’s point of view, was icing on the cake.

  From there, the project quickly gained momentum, and after the usual bumps of getting a movie off the page and on the screen, production began. Shooting in India, Mark’s experience with the crowded, chaotic country mirrored my own running the contest.

  While shooting an exterior street scene in Mumbai, Mark quickly discovered that he was far, far from home. In India, you don’t get a permit and then block off a whole area so that the film crew can make sure the director gets the shot exactly how he planned. Normal everyday life continues, whether or not a major Hollywood movie happens to be shooting ten feet away. For this street scene, the director, Craig Gillespie, ordered tons of extras, cows, sidewalk vendors, and more. But Mark shouldn’t have bothered. Regular Indian people, cows, sidewalk vendors, and the like randomly wandered into the shot over and over, so that it became impossible to tell who was “acting” and who was just walking down the street.

  I was fortunate enough to spend a good amount of time on the set, both in India and back in the States. Whenever I was on the set, my head was on a swivel, since everywhere I went I heard my name repeated.

  “J.B. to hair and makeup!”

  “Does J.B. wear a turban on top of the elephant?”

  “Set up the markers for J.B. on the field.”

  Most of the time, no one was talking to me; they were talking about the character. They were talking about Jon Hamm.

  Meeting Jon, the big-screen J.B., was a unique experience. I’m around big-name athletes all the time, but it’s a different story when you meet a celebrity who’s agreed to be you in a movie. And there’s no bigger compliment in the world than having Jon Hamm play you in a major motion picture.

  Jon, a massive baseball fan (St. Louis Cardinals, to be specific), was very loose and funny on set, which, in my limited experience working with athletes on commercial shoots, is always the best way to be. When the star of a movie doesn’t take himself too seriously, that trickles down to the lowest rung of the long ladder of production employees. The movie set was very harmonious, and I think that’s reflected in the finished product.

  Rinku and Dinesh were understandably very excited when they found out there was going to be a film based on Million Dollar Arm. When the news was first released, a reporter asked them which actor they wanted to play them in the movie, and they both replied instantly, “Rambo.” Not Sylvester Stallone. Rambo.

  Although their wishes didn’t come true, they were good sports, assisting the actors who did play them in the movie to nail accurate portrayals. Rinku was able to spend some time on set with Suraj Sharma (who plays him) and Madhur Mittal (Dinesh) comparing notes on their respective crafts. Rinku talked about getting himself physically and mentally ready to pitch, while Suraj explained how he put himself in the shoes of a guy who was stranded at sea with a tiger for the Academy Award–winning movie Life of Pi. Dinesh, meanwhile, taught Suraj and Madhur, neither of whom had ever touched a baseball before, how to pitch.

  A lot of the original gang from the Million Dollar Arm contest helped to make the movie the best it could be. Deepesh, who worked as a consultant on the film while it was shooting in India, got the opportunity to hang out with big celebrities in his country such as Pitobash, a popular and award-winning film actor who plays him in the movie.

  When Tom House sat down with actor Bill Paxton, who plays him in the film, the first thing he said was, “I don’t know you from Adam, but my wife says that you’re a dude.” Tom, who’s all baseball all the time, is not much of a movie buff. It is a real tribute to Bill’s acting that after only one day together, his portrayal of Tom is virtually perfect.

  Naturally, the true story of Million Dollar Arm was altered in Tom McCarthy’s script. For example, in the movie, the Ash character is married with kids, whereas in reality he’s single. (Just saying, ladies!) Also, Ash and I are portrayed as partners in a sports agency that is going under, although in real life, my agency was quite successful, and Will Chang and Ash were business partners with each other before I came along. The movie also portrays Million Dollar Arm as my idea with Will as just a financier. Nothing could be further from the truth. Apparently, all three of us had been thinking about the concept of finding another Yao Ming, and when we came together the fuzzy ideas in our head came into focus and took the form of Million Dollar Arm. I truly believe that if any of us had not been in the room that day, Million Dollar Arm would have never come to be.

  But for the most part, it’s amazing how faithful the movie is to real life. When it came to sets and props, the attention to detail was mind blowing. The baseball field at Georgia Institute of Technology, where the film was shot, was made over to look like USC’s Dedeaux Field, all the way down to the scoreboard. And J.B.’s office in the film is an exact replica of my real office. They took a bunch of photos of me standing next to people like Barry Sanders and Wayne Gretzky, and then Photoshopped Jon Hamm over me.

  For the contest scenes, they re-created the original shirts, hats, and pamphlets that we used in real life in all their bootleg glory. The logo used in the movie is the same one created for the contest by Tony, Barry Bonds’s creative director and the reason I met Brenda. And a lot of what you see on the screen is the genuine article. Over in India, they borrowed the original pitching cage that we used during tryouts, and all of my original advertising signs and ­posters.

  It was amazing to see how many hoops everyone had to jump through to make Suraj, who is right-handed, play a left-handed pitcher like Rinku. Sometimes Suraj threw the ball with his left hand, and sometimes the director used a left-handed body double. But for other shots, Suraj threw the ball righty, wearing a special uniform that was printed backward in an outfield where all the signs were backward as well. This allowed the editors in postproduction to take those shots and flip them to make him look like a lefty pitcher. In my mind, Rinku’s character could have been right-handed, and it would have saved everyone a lot of time without affecting the story all that much. But it just goes to show you the lengths that Mark, Craig, and the rest of the crew were willing to go to in order to make the movie as realistic as possible.

  The realism of the movie extends to how the characters interact with one another. The scene where Jon (J.B.) and Pitobash (Deepesh) meet each other is so close to how it really happened, it’s scary. Also, the chemistry that Jon developed on-screen with Lake Bell reminds me very much of the way that Brenda and I are in real life.

  Even when the movie embellishes the true story, it feels authentic. When Tom first sent me the script, Brenda and I read it separately. After she was finished, Brenda declared that she was mad at me. Referring to the scene where I give her character the same min
iature Taj Mahal statuette that I bring back for all my friends back home, Brenda said, “You got those Taj Mahals for everybody?” I had to remind her that, not only did I never give her a mini Taj Mahal, I didn’t even know her back when Million Dollar Arm was first happening in India. The script felt so real that even the made-up parts still felt accurate. I called Tom and said, “This must be the best script ever written, because I just got yelled at for something that never even happened!”

  It’s a strange experience seeing other people reenact key moments from your life. Watching Jon throw a ball around on set with Suraj and Madhur, who were dressed up like Rinku and Dinesh, was slightly bizarre. But having a major chapter of my life play out on the big screen is a double-edged sword. When I see the way I went about my business in the past, I feel a degree of embarrassment. I’m not entirely proud of everything that I used to do and everything I used to represent. But on the other hand, the movie also reminds me of how much my life has changed.

  Not only do I have my own wonderful family with Brenda and Delphine (not to mention Rinku and Dinesh), but Million Dollar Arm continues to be a force in India. The contest, now officially partnered with Major League Baseball International, has been renamed Major League Baseball Million Dollar Arm and is growing in popularity. During the second season, which ran in India in 2010, we had one hundred thousand kids try their hand at pitching, up from thirty thousand contestants for season one. Its third season kicks off in February 2014, and we hope to have at least five hundred thousand kids.

  The contest in India is just the tip of the iceberg. We hope over time to add countries such as China, Russia, and South Africa—wherever there are late bloomers and guys who, for whatever reason, have fallen through the cracks, Million Dollar Arm will try to be there to catch them. Witnessing firsthand how the kids I met in India made the most of an opportunity when someone was willing to give them a chance is all the inspiration I need to continue the search for talent in places where no one is looking.