The Indians are part of America's experiment of turning raw athletes with strong throwing arms into deadly pitchers.
Former cricketers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, who stumbled on an unusual path to baseball thanks to winning contracts through the Million Dollar Arm Hunt reality television show, are all fired up to make their debuts this week as minor-league professionals.
Patel and Singh, who are prospects for Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, had never held a baseball until May last year, when they became winners on Million-Dollar Arm and got a crack at making a career in America's national pastime.
Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said the cricket-loving Indians had adapted very well to baseball and developed effective pitches. A Pirates official said on Tuesday that Patel and Singh are likely to play this week in league matches. If the incessant rains don't play spoilsport, thousands of sports-loving fans in India will finally see Patel and Singh become the first major league players from the country by Saturday.
The Pirates are just as curious to find out what they have in the two 20-year-olds who have soldiered on bravely in tackling a foreign game and foreign country.
There have been snide web posts about how the Indians had to learn how to work a water fountain while picking up the rudiments of baseball. But the Pirates feel they may have the last laugh as the Indians are shaping up "remarkably".
"You can very easily argue they are 10 months old in terms of their baseball lives," Huntington said. "We're still at the rudimentary levels with them. That they will be able to pitch in the Gulf Coast League is remarkable. I anticipate they will both be able to hold their own."
Both pitchers are topping out at around 90mph on the radar gun with their fastballs. "It's going to be fun," said Huntington.
"It's going to be a little different from the typical first professional outing," the general manager said. "This is really their first outing. It will be different, but we are not trying to get too caught up in it. We want to let them become part of the routine as much as possible."
Each player signed up for $10,000 and spent months working out with pitching coach Tom House.
"This is the most amazing thing I have been part of," said House, University of Southern California pitching coach and former major league pitcher, who has spent months training the duo. "This is like medical science. It's turning raw athletes into pitchers. You wouldn't believe how far they have come."
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