When superstar sports agent J B Bernstein set foot in India for the "Million Dollar Arm" contest, he was confident of finding the stars as he felt there just had to be a large number of Indian men who had the raw talent to pitch a baseball.
Bernstein created the "Million Dollar Arm" contest in India, which yielded the first two Indian men to ever sign pro sports contracts in the US - Dinesh Patel and Rinku Singh, both hailing from Lucknow.
"Million Dollar Arm", a timeless reflection on baseball and the American dream as well as a tale of victory over incredible odds, has been published as a book by Simon & Schuster and also adapted as a movie by Craig Gillespie from a screenplay written by Tom McCarthy.
Bernstein flew to Mumbai in 2007 to find baseball talent in an untapped market through his reality television competition with a huge cash prize and a chance to become the first native of India to sign a contract with an American major-league team.
"Cricket and baseball are more similar than most think. With the sheer number of men in India between 16 and 25, there just had to be a large number of Indian men that had the raw talent to pitch a baseball," Bernstein told PTI in an interview.
He says he discovered in India "limitless opportunities that arise when you search for potential in those who don't even know they possess it and looking in unexpected places for the extraordinary expanded his field of vision and changed how he 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," Bernstein says.
He says he was very optimistic when he launched "Million Dollar Arm" as on the first day of tryouts, a young kid threw 93 MPH.
He feels in India, outside of cricket, professional sports is underdeveloped, so many of the people who would go into pro sports in a country like the US end up doing other jobs.
